s. 


I/' 


I 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE, 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


BY 


C.[AUTON. 

(AUGUSTUS  HOPPINJ 


SEVENTH   EDITION. 


BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY. 

NEW  YORK:   11  EAST  SEVENTEENTH  STREET. 

Hitersfo?  press,  CambriDge* 

1897 


Copyright,  1881, 
BT  HODGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  GO 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  V.  S.  A. 
Klectrotyped  and  Printed  by  II.  O.  Uoughton  &  Company. 


I  DEDICATE  THIS  BOOK  TO   MY   NEPHEWS 
FRANK  AND  JOE. 


2210232 


PREFACE. 


THESE  reminiscences  are  written  to  satisfy  the  Auton  who  com- 
posed them,  and  to  amuse  the  Autons  who  may  read  them.  Grown- 
up people  never  cease  to  be  young.  They  are  only  old  boys 
with  hats  and  whiskers,  and  old  girls  with  frizettes  and  eye- 
glasses, that 's  all.  There  are  many  Auton  houses  in  the  land, 
and  lots  of  Auton  children  wandering  over  it,  but  the  original 
Auton  House  is  gone  forever,  and  we  can  only  catch  the  echo 
of  its  revelry  in  our  ear,  and  detect  a  smack  of  its  good  cheer 
lingering  on  our  tongue. 

As  an  old-fashioned  dish,  now  and  then,  is  not  unpalatable,  so 
perhaps  a  few  chapters  of  reminiscences  may  be  tolerated,  pro- 
vided they  do  not  overtax  our  patience  by  their  platitudes. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  FIRST. 

MM 
AUTON-BABYHOOD 9 

CHAPTER  SECOND. 
AUTON  NURSERY.  — "AUNT  MOODY"  — "DEBORAH" 16 

CHAPTER   THIRD. 
AUTON  NURSERY — THE  ARK  AND  THE  JOLLY-BOAT .27 

CHAPTER  FOURTH. 
MR.  AND  MRS.  JOHN  HONZY '.36 

CHAPTER  FIFTH. 
ROOMS  IN  AUTON  HOUSE 41 

CHAPTER  SIXTH. 
THE  MIDDLE  CHAMBER 48 

CHAPTER  SEVENTH. 
WORK  AND  PLAY 60 

CHAPTER  EIGHTH. 
OUR  MOTHER  AUTON  ......       66 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER  NINTH. 


PAGE 


AUTON  PECULIARITIES .71 

CHAPTER  TENTH. 
AUTON  KITCHEN 7S 

CHAPTER  ELEVENTH. 
CHRISTMAS  AT  AUTON  HOUSE 86 

CHAPTER   TWELFTH. 
FATHER  AUTON       .       .       ...       . .   - •       •       • 

POSTSCRIPT .    97 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


CHAPTER  FIRST. 

AUTON  -  BABYHOOD. 

Y  name  is  C.  Auton,  a  boy-baby.  They 
blew  in  my  face  to  keep  me  alive.  My 
parents  had  so  many  children  that  my 
advent  troubled  nobody  but  my  mother 
and  Doctor  Posset. 

I  struggled  with  existence  in  the 
usual  senseless  manner.  The  first  liq- 
uid I  ever  swallowed  was  a  spoonful  of 
tepid  sugar-and- water. 
I  lay  on  Miss  Betsey  Arnold's  lap  for  hours,  so  poor  and  weak  as 
hardly  to  be  able  to  keep  together.  The  whole  lookout  of  life  was 
sad  and  unnatural.  I  had  no  idea  I  should  be  such  a  fool,  and  was 
ashamed  to  be  unable  to  hold  up  my  head.  I  found,  also,  to  my 
chagrin,  that  Miss  Betsey's  supporting  hand  behind  my  ears  was 
necessary  to  keep  me  from  tumbling  together  into  a  little  heap. 
My  eyes  got  constantly  crossed  looking  at  Miss  Betsey's  gold  spec- 
tacles, and  I  was  continually  trying  to  see  how  wide  I  could  stretch 
my  mouth,  and  what  new  grimaces  I  could  make  at  invisible  people. 


10  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

When  I  did  this  in  my  sleep  Miss  Betsey  said  it  was  the  wind  in  my 
stomach.  My  poor  little  knees  were  dreadfully  red  and  mottled, 
and  when  I  lay  on  my  back  they  came  way  up  over  my  head. 

I  made  frequent  attempts  to  stick  my  finger  through  that  soft 
spot  between  the  sutures  on  the  top  of  my  cranium.  People  who 
saw  my  little  finger-nail  pronounced  it  the  smallest  on  record. 
When  Miss  Betsey  and  I  were  alone  I  inspected  my  digits  to  dis- 
cover what  there  was  so  "  awful  cunning"  about  them.  When  the 
parson  came  to  see  me  nurse  asked  him  if  I  was  not  a  "  beauty." 
The  conscientious  man,  I  am  told,  got  over  the  difficulty  by  saying, 
"  Well,  he  is  a  baby."  When  I  was  sufficiently  cohesive  to  bear  pin- 
ning, I  passed  my  time  driveling  over  Miss  Betsey's  finger,  and 
repeating  the  inane  expression  "  a-goo  !  " 

Grown  folks  know  little  about  the  real  trouble  of  "  being  dressed." 
Prinking  for  balls  and  dressing  for  dinners  is  nothing  to  the  ma- 
tutinal lavations  of  babyhood.  It  is  the  bore  of  infancy.  Miss 
Betsey  was  a  "  cleaner "  in  every  sense  of  the  word ;  and  when 
she  once  "  put  her  hand  to  the  plow  "  she  went  straight  through, 
regardless  of  screams,  and  kicking  the  air,  and  loss  of  breath. 

Almost  the  first  thing  Miss  Betsey  did  to  me,  after  supporting 
my  neck  in  the  bath-tub  to  prevent  my  head  from  bobbing  under 
the  water,  was  to  let  me  drip  on  the  blanket.  Then  she  rubbed  my 
back  into  a  bright  ruby-color,  and  "  adjusted  "  the  apology  for  a 
shirt  over  that  hunchy  strip  of  wrinkled  flannel  which  pinched  my 
sides  underneath.  This  ruffled  "  apology  "  was  three  or  four  times 
too  wide  for  its  length.  Miss  Betsey  first  folded  it  in  a  broad 
plait  in  front,  while  I  lay  on  my  back;  then,  after  I  had  been 
flopped  over  on  my  face  across  her  knees,  like  a  batch  of  dough,  she 
took  another  broad  plait  in  the  rear.  To  keep  this  skimpy  thing  in 


A  UTON-BABYHOOD. 


11 


place,  came  the  snug-fitting,  long-skirted  flannel  petticoat  sewed  on 
to  a  cotton  waist,  and  pinned  pretty  tight.  Miss  Betsey  always 
meant  her  "things"  to  stay.  After  this  —  like  an  extinguisher  — 
over  the  head  came  the  gossamer  linen  slip  with  its  frills  and  its 
insertions,  its  armlets  and  its  shield-pins,  —  the  three-cornered  bib 
with  its  shield-pin,  —  the  enormous  scarf  with  its  shield-pin,  and  the 
puff  and  the  powder,  and  the  hair  parted  at  the  side  with  a  curl  in 
the  shape  of  a  rolling-billow  on  the  top  of  the  head.  I  was  then 
what  was  called  "  dressed."  But  all  these  different  layers  of  cloth- 
ing pinched  and  squeezed  me  so  that  I  screamed  with  discomfort. 
Miss  Betsey  said  "  C.  Auton  was  hungry,"  —  so  I  was  instantly  laid 
on  my  back  again  and  filled  up  with  milk  and  water.  She  dexter- 
ously caught  the  overflowing  streams  in  the  pap-spoon,  as  they 
meandered  down  the  corners  of  iny  mouth,  and  scooped  them  clev- 
erly back  again  into  their  proper  channel,  saying  all  the  time, 
"  There  !  there  !  "  Then  I  was  jounced  and  trotted  at  a  pleasant 
family  gait,  until  my  little  crowded,  wheezing,  and  rolling  stomach 
had  wrestled  with  and  overcome  the  lacteal  ocean  poured  into  it  — 
when  Miss  Betsey  "  eased  up,"  and  my  internal  revolutions  ceased. 

The  deep  mahogany  cradle  in  which  all 
the  Auton-babies  passed  their  younger 
days  stands  out  like  a  telegraph  pole 
along  the  path  of  my  earliest  memory. 
Oh,  that  wonderful  cradle !  Oh,  that  deep, 
respectable  cradle  !  Oh,  that  rich,  mahog- 
any cradle !  Its  color,  acquired  by  age, 
and  the  constant  rubbing  of  little  boys' 
trousers,  resembled  that  of  the  wonderful 
gingerbread  which  "  Old  Rosannah,  the  l// 


12  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

cook,"  used  to  bake  for  us,  and  nothing  could  be  richer  than  that. 
The  hood  of  that  rocking  hammock  had  a  graceful  slant.  The 
brass  handles  at  either  end  were  bright  as  bright  could  be.  The 
roof  was  fastened  with  brass-headed  nails,  and  the  rockers  had  just 
the  right  bevel  to  invite  slumber.  One  of  the  roof -boards  was 
cracked,  and  the  light  played  through  the  aperture  —  first  dark- 
ness, then  light,  then  darkness,  then  light  —  as  our  baby-heads 
went  wagging  to  and  fro  while  Miss  Betsey  did  the  rocking. 

Talk  about  the  sweet  slumber  which  follows  honest  toil !  It  is 
nothing  to  the  peaceful  naps  in  that  old  cradle.  I  can  see  it  now 
with  its  clean  draperies  wooing  us  to  its  soft  embrace. 

Before  Miss  Betsey  laid  us  in  it  she  leaned  forward  to  "  make  it 
up,"  while  the  baby  hung  dangling  and  dozing  over  her  left  arm 
the  while.  First  came  the  long  bolster-pillow  in  the  body  of  the 
cradle.  Then  the  shorter  one  at  the  top,  with  a  little  soft  valley  in 
it  for  the  head  to  lie  in.  Then  came  the  baby  —  so  sleepy !  —  so 
limp  with  nodding  !  He  was  laid  gently  on  his  right  side,  with  his 
thumb  in  his  mouth  and  a  small  milk-blister  on  his  upper  lip.  The 
left  arm  —  that  one  which  had  been  vaccinated,  and  which  was 
beginning  to  "  take  "  —  softly  placed  outside  the  blanket.  "  Sh ! 
Sh!  Sh!  There!  there!"  The  rocking  stopped.  C.  Auton  was 
asleep. 

Miss  Betsey  Arnold  was  the  queen  of  nurses.  I  shall  never  for- 
get her  kindness  during  that  perilous  epoch  of  evolution.  I  shall 
ever  thank  her  for  winking  at  my  sucking  the  wash-rag  during  my 
morning  bath,  and  while  she  was  rummaging  my  basket  for  the  next 
layer  of  clothes.  It  was  a  sweet  privilege  —  now  so  tardily  ac- 
knowledged. Dear  Miss  Betsey  !  In  a  better  land  than  this  you 
will  reap  your  own  nursing  reward.  That  "innumerable  caravan" 


A  UTON-BABYHOOD. 


13 


which  you  so  gracefully  welcomed  on  this  side  of  life  will  greet  you 
there  on  the  other  with  loud  acclaim. 

Big  and  little  voices  will  call  you  "  Auntie." 


My  mother  had  twelve  Auton-babies.     One  failed  to  attain  ma- 
turity, and  that  left  eleven.    They  arrived  in  the  following  order :  — 

J.  AUTON, 

A.  AUTON  (girl), 
T.  AUTON, 

S.  AUTON  (girl), 
F.  AUTON, 

H.  AUTON, 

E.  AUTON  (girl), 

W.  AUTON, 

A.  AUTON, 

H.  AUTON  (girl), 

C.  AUTON. 


14  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

None  of  these  Autons  were  prodigies,  although  several  of  them 
were  "  unkimmon  clever  "  and  "  bright  as  buttons." 

They  were  bred  in  a  famous  nursery,  under  the  surveillance  of 
several  quite  remarkable  women  ;  two  of  whom  were  named  "Aunt 
Moody  "  and  "  Deborah."  In  this  wonderful  spot  they  passed  their 
happy  adolescence,  until  they  were  ready  to  cut  loose  from  apron- 
strings  and  do  battle  in  the  great  world  themselves. 

For  the  amusement  of  other  Autons  throughout  Christendom,  I 
will  in  the  following  chapters  give  a  description  of  these  two 
Auton  nurses,  and  some  account  of  the  marvelous  transactions 
which  were  performed  in  that  celebrated  mansion  for  the  space  of 
a  generation  —  during  which  time  different  sets  of  Autons  were 
graduating  from  and  entering  into  this  blessed  goal  of  their  ten- 
derer years. 


CHAPTER  SECOND. 

AUTON  NURSERY. 
"  AUNT  MOODY  "  —  "  DEBORAH." 

PRICELESS  boon  in  the  nursery  —  next  to  a 
good  mother  —  is  a  faithful  nurse.  I  don't  mean 
that  modern  female  nondescript  with  a  Nor- 
mandy cap  and  a  mouth  full  of  foreign  language, 
but  a  kind-hearted  Puritan,  of  good  judgment 
and  common  sense  ;  one  who  remembered  Gen- 
eral Washington,  and  who  lived  for  the  children 
under  her  care  rather  than  for  so  much  a  month. 
Unhappily  this  species  is  nearly  extinct  —  buried 
beneath  the  new  kinks  of  modern  nurseryism.  Still,  however,  a 
traveler  here  and  there  totters  across  our  pathway,  reminding  us  of 
her  long  life  of  self-sacrifice  and  devotion. 

"  Aunt  Moody  "  and  "  Deborah  "  were  two  old-fashioned,  long- 
suffering,  sweet-tempered  children-lovers.  To  us  they  seemed  to 
have  been  born  in  that  nursery,  or,  for  aught  we  knew,  were  coexist- 
ent with  the  Flood.  Whenever  they  "went  out"  it  was  as  much  of  a 
circumstance  to  the  whole  household  as  one  of  Mother  Auton's  even- 
ing parties,  or  a  Thanksgiving  dinner.  Whenever  they  "  dressed 
up  "  the  children  immediately  stopped  play,  gathered  about  their 
knees,  and  plied  them  with  the  most  impertinent  questions —  handled 


16 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


and  fingered  their  old  finery  with  a  license  which  the  extraordinary 
circumstances  of  the  occasion  alone  warranted.  "Aunt  Moody"  and 
"Deborah  "  were  as  much  of  an  institution  in  the  Auton  nursery  as 
the  old  four-poster  bedstead  ;  or  the  nursery  closet  where  the  medi- 
cines were  kept;  or  the  top  cupboard  where  the  "balm"  and  the 
"  catnip  "  and  the  "  elder  "  sent  out  their  perfume ;  or  the  rug  by 

the  nursery  fire  where  the  boys 
got  to  sleep  on  Saturday  nights, 
waiting  to  be  washed ;  or  the  trun- 
dle-bed under  the  big  bed,  where 
we  were  all  stowed  away  in  peace, 
—  or  any  other  of  those  house- 
hold penates  connected  with  our 
earthly  paradise.  I  can  only  speak 
of  "  Aunt  Moody  "  with  a  meas- 
ured amount  of  assurance,  as  she 
was  associated  with  that  former 
regime,  when  the  first  stratum  of 
Autons  held  the  nursery  under 
their  domination.  The  reign  of 
"  Deborah "  (which  marked  the  epoch  of  the  incursion  of  the 
younger  branch  into  the  nursery  which  took  possession,  like  the 
ancient  Huns,  of  what,  to  us,  constituted  the  whole  known  world) 
is  the  occasion  affording  me  opportunity  to  speak  with  confidence 
and  certainty. 

"Aunt  Moody"  was  a  little,  clean,  old  woman  with  a  very  large 
nose  and  a  ruffled  mob-cap  not  unlike  "  Old  Mother  Hubbard's." 
This  cap  had  no  strings,  but  was  kept  in  place  by  a  wide  black  rib- 
bon with  an  Alsacian  bow  at  the  top  of  it,  Originally  she  had  had 


AUTON  NURSERY. 


17 


large  quantities  of  double-chin,  but  this  feature,  through  lapse  of 
years  and  cares  of  the  nursery,  had  dwindled  both  in  comeliness 
and  substance,  so  that  it  now  served  only  as  the  plaything  of  the 
younger  children,  who  fondled  it  with  tender  emotion.  To  us 
youngsters  there  was  something  strange  and  uncanny  about  Aunt 
Moody,  and  we  listened  with  bated  breath  to  her  stories  of  "Sister 
Carstoff  "  and  "  Brother  Ben,"  the  sea-captain; 
and  this  strangeness  was  only  increased  by  the 
funniest-looking  thumb  which  she  had,  and  the 
queerest  sort  of  a  big  toe  which  we  used  to 
catch  sight  of  on  Saturday  nights,  two  facts 
which  completed  the  romantic  and  peculiar 
impression  of  this  old  lady.  But  for  all  that 
she  was  a  dear  creature,  self-sacrificing  and 
long-suffering,  and  to  her  unwearying  counsel 
and  unremitting  care  the  older  Autons  are  in- 
debted for  a  good  deal  of  their  "  bringing-up." 

Whenever  the  children  took  the  census  of 
the  family  Aunt  Moody  came  next  in  order  to 
us.  She  was  followed  by  Rosannah,  the  black 
cook,  and  Freeborn  (pronounced  Fre'bun),  the 
black  waiter,  and  the  old  wooden  pump  in  the 
kitchen,  and  "  Sterling,"  the  yellow-eyed  cat,  and  the  oval  brick 
oven,  where  the  Sunday-morning  breakfast  was  baked,  and  the 
horseshoes  hanging  on  the  old  crane,  and  the  bright  tin-kitchen  be- 
fore the  wood  fire,  and  the  Johnny-cake  board,  and  many  other 
objects  of  affection  in  Auton  House  of  so  much  individualism  and 
character  as  to  entitle  them  to  a  position  as  members  of  the  family. 

People  said  Aunt  Moody  had  been  married,  and  that  there  was  a 
2 


18 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


son  or  daughter  in  Swansea,  or  Rehoboth,  or  some  other  (to  us) 
foreign  city.  But  if  so  "  Old  Moody  "  never  "  turned  up  "  to  dis- 
turb her,  and  she  was  left  unmolested  to  complete  her  blameless, 
self-sacrificing  mission  untrammeled  by  any  uxorious  responsibil- 
ities. 

Aunt  Moody  wore   a   frizette,  and   T.  Auton   on  one  occasion 

pulled  it  off, 
leaving  her 
aged  poll  de- 
fenseless and 
bare,  but  the 
dear  old  body 
immediately 
forgave  him, 
and  showed 
this  forgive- 
ness by  snatch- 
ing the  same 
boy  off  the 
"forestick" 


where  he  had 

sat  down  and  caught  fire  —  when,  throwing  him  on  the  rug,  she 
"  put  him  out  "  with  a  pitcher  of  hot  water. 

It  would  be  a  subject  for  a  clever  artist  to  depict,  this  faithful 
creature  amidst  a  bevy  of  pretty  boys  and  girls,  moving  hither, 
and  yon,  settling  disputes,  soothing  ruffled  feelings,  chiding  the  up- 
roarious, and  chasing  unruly  offenders  under  the  bed.  Her  surest 
method  of  dislodging  them  from  this  hiding-place  was  a  coal  of  fire 
in  the  tongs,  which  she  would  thrust  into  their  lair,  repeating  all 
the  while  her  favorite  oath,  "  Burn  yer  boots !  burn  yer  boots !  " 


AUTON  NURSERY. 


19 


When  Aunt  Moody  left  Auton  House  forever,  the  nursery  was 
hung  in  sackcloth.  Her  loss  seemed  to  us  irreparable.  No  more 
queer-looking  big  toes  Saturday  nights !  No  more  funny-looking 
thumbs  to  fondle  !  No  more  double-chins  to  caress !  Our  "  dolls 
were  stufied  with  sawdust."  The  night  of  her  departure  was  kept 
a  secret  from  the  younger  children.  The  new  nurse  who  was  to 
fill  the  gap  left  by  our  ancient  friend  was  instructed  to  comfort 


the  disconsolate  ones  when  they  woke  up  by  taking  their  hands, 
as  Aunt  Moody  used  to  do;  but  the  ruse  proved  unavailing,  for 
the  moment  they  missed  that  friendly  but  stubbed  thumb  on  the 
strange  hand  stretched  out  to  them  in  the  darkness  they  screamed 
out,  "  Aunt  Moody  's  gone !  "  "  Aunt  Moody 's  gone  !  "  "  Who  is 
this  old  thing  in  bed  with  us?"  "We  won't  have  you!"  "We 
hate  you !  "  And  away  went  the  blankets  and  the  sheets,  and  out 


20 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


jumped  a  brood  of  young  Autons,  with  heads  like  mops,  in  night- 
gowns and  night-drawers,  howling  like  a  pack  of  savages.  That  was 
a  night  to  be  remembered. 


DEBORAH. 

EBORAH,  or,  as  we  called  her,  "  Deb- 
'rah,"  was  a  little  brunette  woman, 
weighing  about  one  hundred  and 
twelve  pounds,  but  every  one  of 
those  pounds  was  a  good  one. 
Her  whole  life  was  a  vicarious 
one.  She  no  more  thought  of 
neglecting  her  daily  duty  than 
she  did  of  omitting  to  wash  our  faces;  and  this  was  sometimes 
rather  a  delicate  operation,  because  our  little  noses  would  become 
chapped  and  inflamed  by  the  cold,  and  our  grimy  hands  at  night 


AUTON  NURSERY. 


21 


were,  what  she  used  to  call,  "  A  sight  to  behold,"  the  grime  being 
lackered  on.  Deborah's  career  was  one  prolonged  exhibition  of 
self-sacrifice.  See  how  much  she  did  for  us,  and  how  very  little  for 
herself ! 

For  our  sakes  she  kept  in  that  nursery  from  morning  till  night 
for  over  a  generation.     . 

She  sat  up  till  midnight  ironing  our  collars  and  plaiting  our  ruf- 
fles, while  her  parboiled  thumbs 
were  bleeding  from  the  cracks  which 
cold  and  constant  washing  had  pro- 
duced. She  never  had  a  good  square 
night's  rest  for  thirty  years. 

For  our  sakes  she  had  the  worst 
form  of  dyspepsia — eating  her  meals 
so  irregularly,  and  at  unheard-of 
hours.  If  necessary,  she  swept  up 
after  us  twenty  times  a  day  without 
a  whimper.  She  slept  on  the  edge 
of  the  bed  until  she  became  a  callous 
old  woman.  She  warded  off  many 
a  maternal  castigation,  and  meekly 
allowed  all  of  us  to  "pile  on"  her 
back,  to  sop  her  scanty  front  hair 
with  water,  twist  it  into  curls  and  frizzles  and  "  comb  it  to  death," 
while  she,  poor  soul !  was  nodding  from  sheer  exhaustion,  and  en- 
during these  indignities  without  a  murmur.  And  what  did  she  do 
for  herself  ?  She  may  have  laid  up  her  wages,  but  we  did  n't  know 
anything  about  that.  She  was  content  with  one  dull-colored  gown, 
and  one  apron  for  week  days,  and  a  Sunday  one  for  other  occasions. 


22  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

If  she  ever  had  a  lover  we  children  must  have  frightened  him 
away.  She  had  a  brother  "  Ellerey,"  who  was  a  truckman,  and  a 
sister-in-law  with  one  little  stiff  arm,  whom  she  called  "  Ruby,"  and 
"Anna  Maria,"  her  niece,  who  was  pretty,  and  had  weak  eyes,  and 
a  pair  of  prunella  shoes  —  and  that  was  all.  The  rest  of  her  life  and 
the  rest  of  her  thoughts  were  devoted  to  us.  And  in  return  for  it 
we  provoked  her,  and  plagued  her,  and  combed  her  hair  all  out,  and 
almost  worried  her  life  out,  until  she  was  thin  enough  to  blow  away, 
and  weary  enough  to  He  down  and  die.  If  there  is  but  one  saint 
in  heaven  Deb'rah  is  that  one.  If  love,  and  devotion,  and  duty 
ever  bring  their  own  reward  there  is  a  halo  of  glory  about  our 
Deb'rah's  head  which  can  never  fade  away.  She  came  from  Tiv- 
erton,  and  her  complexion  was  sallow. 

It  is  singular  how  an  old  nurse  like  this  is  indissolubly  connected 
in  the  memory  with  every  act  of  one's  youthful  life.  Reminiscences 
of  both  joy  and  sorrow  ever  bring  back  with  them  that  faded  image. 
Whenever  W.  Auton  and  I  had  new  suits  of'  clothes  come  home  from 
"Aunt  Nancy  Miller's"  (the  nursery  tailoress)  smelling  of  snuff  and 
beeswax,  Deb'rah  was  the  girl  who  first  buttoned  them  up  for  us. 
When  March,  April,  and  May  came  round,  the  season  to  take  the 
"  spring  medicine,"  Deb'rah  stood  ready  with  the  sulphur  and  mo- 
lasses, to  deal  out  to  each  child  in  procession  that  gritty  sweetness,  a 
panacea  for  all  ills.  When  a  sudden  attack  of  "stomach  out  of  order" 
made  its  hated  appearance,  and  the  lukewarm  "salts,"  or  the  "debil- 
itating "  steeped  physic,  were  set  in  the  washbowl  to  cool,  that  same 
long-suffering  creature  labored  with  us  to  "  be  good  boys  and  take 
it,"  and  stood  ready  with  the  bit  of  orange  to  clap  in  our  mouths  the 
instant  the  dose  was  swallowed,  and  took  us  to  her  attenuated  bosom 
to  comfort  us,  until  the  taste  was  out  of  our  mouths. 


AUTON  NURSERY. 


23 


Oh !  that  dreadful  castor  oil  and  ipecacuanha  period  !  "  Shall  I 
ever  forget  thee  ? "  She  brought  forth  the  lukewarm  draught. 
There  it  was  smoking  and  cooling  in  the  white  washbowl.  We 
stopped  our  play  to  sniff  its  odious  contents.  We  turned  up  our 
noses  at  the  bare  suggestion.  We  swore  that  we  would  "  never,  no 
never,  take  the  darned  stuff,"  but  she  begged  and  implored  and 


prayed  us  to  "just  go  and  swallow  it  like  little  men."  But  not 
until  we  had  struck  her,  and  kicked  her,  and  she  had  finally  threat- 
ened to  call  in  Mother  Auton,  with  that  "  legendary  medicine 
spoon  "  which  either  strangled  the  boy  or  lodged  the  dose  safely  in 
his  stomach,  did  we  break  furiously  away  from  her  apron-strings, 
approach  the  villainous  decoction,  and,  with  faces  resembling  that 
of  Mephistopheles,  drain  the  vile  cup  to  the  "  bitter  end." 


24  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

This  subject  of  medicines  naturally  leads  me  into  our  great  nur- 
sery-closet where  all  the  different  medicaments  were  kept.  When 
I  call  to  mind  the  contents  of  the  three  shelves  on  the  right-hand 
side  as  you  entered  that  closet,  I  wonder  that  there  is  a  single  Au- 
ton  left  alive,  or,  at  least,  unparalyzed,  to  tell  the  tale.  The  first 
sight  revealed  a  sugar-bowl  with  no  cover,  which  contained  that 
"  whited  sepulchre  "  —  epsom  salts.  The  syrup-of -squills  bottle, 
with  its  sugared  nozzle,  stood  next  to  it.  Then  came  "  Old  Re- 
liable," the  castor-oil  tank.  How  hard  that  dose  was  to  swallow  ! 
almost  impossible  to  get  all  of  it  out  from  the  table-spoon,  yet 
every  bit  had  to  be  scooped  into  the  mouth  with  our  upper  lip  be- 
fore the  orange  came  to  take  the  taste  out.  Here  stands  the  spirits 
of  nitre  for  fever,  and  there  the  essence  of  peppermint  for  stomach- 
ache. Next  to  this  comes  the  deadly  paregoric  for  crying  babies, 
then  a  little  bottle  labeled  "  Balsam  of  Life,"  then  a  dreadfully 
bad-tasting  compound  called  "  Elixir  jSalutis"  next  to  this  stands 
the  essence  of  red  lavender — jolly  on  sugar!  Then,  away  back 
there,  in  a  round  glass  bottle,  stood  the  "  Elixir  Pro,"  —  we  used  to 
call  it  "  Lex'y  Pro."  This  last  medicine  was  "  child's  play "  to 
that  horrid  "  Picry,"  ah  !  so  bitter !  Deb'rah  called  it  "  Verm'fug," 
and  it  was  a  good  one.  And  after  this  what  we  called  "  Epekak," 
and,  oh  my !  how  effective.  Then  came  all  sorts  and  kinds  of  pill 
boxes  and  salves  and  cough  mixtures.  One  of  these  compositions 
in  an  earthen  jar,  called  "Manton's  Compound,"  was  rather  pala- 
table. The  licorice  part  was  "  So-so  "  to  take,  but  its  other  ingre- 
dients made  us  sick.  Then  followed  white  papers  of  senna  leaves 
and  manna,  with  here  and  there  a  bit  of  stick-licorice  and  a  small 
lump  of  manna.  This  latter  substance  we  always  believed  to  be  the 
true  manna  eaten  by  the  Israelites  for  forty  years  in  their  wander- 


AUTON  NURSERY. 


25 


ings.  Then  came  packages  of  boneset  and  thoroughwort.  Then  a 
bottle  of  apple-balsam  for  wounds.  Then  old  pieces  of  flannel  skirts 
and  other  things  to  dip  into  hot  rum  when  folks  were  in  pain. 
Then  New  England  rum.  Then  a  broken  teacup  containing  "  Bur- 
gundy pitch  "  to  spread  on  plasters  for  the  "  smalls  of  backs,"  and 
the  old  case-knife  to  spread  it  on  with  lying  beside  the  cup.  Then 
came  lint  and  bees- 
wax, and  balsam  of 
Tolu,  and  dry  mag- 
nesia in  square  bot- 
tles, for  heart-burn, 
and  ever  so  many 
more  frightful  nos- 
trums. It  is  a  cause 
for  thanksgiving  that 
we  survived  all  these 
"  lions  in  our  path." 

On  the  left  side  of 
this  closet  lay  the 
sweet  herbs  brought  to  us  every  year  by  old  Miss  Burden  and 
Nancy  Speywood.  There  was  the  aromatic  catnip,  and  the  cooling 
balm,  the  sweet  everlasting,  and  the  bitter  chamomile.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  refreshment  which  Deb'rah's  cold  balm-tea,  poured 
from  a  broken-nosed  teapot,  gave  to  our  parched  throats,  after  the 
Doctor  had  forbidden  us  to  touch  cold  water,  during  fever  attacks. 

These  fragrant  bundles  of  nature's  perfumery  were  piled,  one 
above  another,  on  the  upper  shelves  of  the  old  closet,  in  clean,  white, 
cotton  bags ;  and  they  served  as  agreeable  foils  to  counteract  the 
deadly  characteristics  of  the  opposite  side. 


26  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

Among  all  this  scented  herbage  we  passed  many  a  fleeting  hour. 
W.  Auton  (boy),  beautiful  as  the  day,  with  chestnut  curls  and  rosy, 
pouting  lips,  would  climb  to  the  top  shelf,  flageolet  in  hand,  and 
buried  there  in  this  fragrant  retreat  would  discourse  long  repeti- 
tions of  "  Lord  dismiss  us  "  and  "  Auld  lang  Syne,"  in  order  to 
drown  the  squeals  of  the  younger  children  and  the  fat  girls  of 
the  family,  who,  acting  out  the  play  of  "  market,"  were  making 
believe  being  butchered  for  Christmas,  and  cut  up  into  joints  by 
the  older  boys. 


CHAPTER  THIRD. 

AUTON  NURSERY. 
THE   ARK  AND   THE   JOLLY-BOAT. 

OAH'S  ark  and  the  jolly  -  boat,  by 
which  I  mean  the  big  four-poster  and 
the  trundle-bed  underneath  it,  have 
sheltered  more  square  yards  of  chil- 
dren within  their  wide,  straddling 
sides  than  any  other  two  private  beds 
in  New  England. 

To  enter  the  ark  we  needed  a  chair, 
to  board  the  jolly-boat  we  had  only 
to  tumble  in.  The  trundle-bed  was 
shoved  under  the  big  one  during  the 

day  and  drawn  out  at  night.  These  beds  held  different  sets  of  chil- 
dren at  different  epochs.  Once  the  two  afforded  nightly  domicile 
for  no  less  than  six  boy  and  girl  Autons.  Besides  these,  Deb'rah, 
of  course,  was  curled  up  somewhere  on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  on  a 
space  scarcely  wide  enough  to  rest  a  teacup.  In  the  morning  the 
"  baby,"  whoever  it  might  be,  was  set  in  the  midst  of  the  charmed 
circle,  to  which  was  often  added  the  new  kitten,  a  fresh  puppy, 
or  somebody's  black  boy.  Bottled  up  within  this  company  was  a 
tremendous  amount  of  latent  fun  and  animal  spirits,  ready  at  any 


28 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


instant  to  break  out  and  join  the  "  dreadful  revelry "  about  to 
begin.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  all  the  wonderful  plays  and 
journeys  taken,  —  the  babels  and  bedlams  let  loose  —  the  hootings 
and  shoutings  and  screams  which  proceeded,  on  such  occasions, 
from  the  warm  depths  of  these  resting-places  of  my  childhood.  I 
will  endeavor,  however,  to  give  an  idea  of  several  of  the  more 
prominent  and  fascinating  fandangoes,  as  specimens  of  the  rest. 

I  must  premise  this  description  by  making  a 
remark  about  the  nursery  night-dress  of  that 
period.  All  the  girls  wore  nightcaps  with  ruf- 
fles on  the  edge.  As  to  that  matter  Mother 
Auton  and  Deb'rah  were  all  in  the  fashion  ; 
mother's  cap  was  high  behind,  the  ruffles  com- 
ing all  over  her  face  and  concealing  every  feat- 
ure but  her  nose,  while  Deb'rah's  "  was  smaller, 
and  used  to  get  askew  "  in  the  morning,  after 
the  whole  family  had  clambered  across  her  face 
to  see  who  could  be  first  at  the  fire  to  dress. 

All  the  boy  Autons  wore  night-drawers,  tied 
behind  with  running  strings,  once  at  the  neck, 
and  then  again  at  the  waist.  These  garments 
always  "  gaped  "  a  little  in  the  back,  but  this 
only  made  it  more  fun  to  jump  out  of  them 
after  they  had  been  tied,  and  then  stick  our  legs  quickly  back  again 
before  Deb'rah  saw  us. 

Every  Auton  child  said  his  prayers. 

First  came  the  prayer  beginning  "  Now  another  day  is  gone." 
In  this  petition  there  are  lines  like  these :  "  See  how  my  childhood 
runs  to  waste ;"  "  My  sins  how  great  a  sum  !  " 


AUTON  NURSERY.  29 

This  passage  puzzled  us  much,  and  we  used  to  inspect  each  other 
very  closely  to  see  if  we  were  actually  "  running  to  waist."  We 
concluded,  also,  that  as  the  prayer  said  that  our  sins  were  a  "  greater 
sum  "  they  probably  must  be,  although  we  failed  to  see  the  force  of 
the  expression.  One  of  the  children  explained  it  by  saying  it  had 
"  something  to  do  with  salvation,"  and  that  settled  it.  After  this 
came  the  prayer,  "  Now  I  lay  me,"  etc. 

To  us,  this  was  some  sort  of  an  animal,  a  Llama,  which  we  resem- 
bled, lying  down  to  sleep.  Religion  seemed  queer  to  us  then,  and 
came  hard.  After  our  devotions  we  prepared  ourselves  for  the  night 
and  generally  consumed  large  quantities  of  cold,  shortened,  flour 
Johnny-cake,  which  made  us  very  thirsty,  and  got  the  bed  full  of 
dried  crumbs.  These  would  roll  under  us  and  prick  our  warm  rosy 
skins,  so  that  Deb'rah  had  to  come  and  scrape  them  up  in  the  palm 
of  her  hand,  while  we  squatted  on  the  outside  of  the  bed  in  our 
night-clothes.  These  operations,  preliminary  to  sleep,  ended  by  a 
"  drink  of  water  "  all  round,  and  Auton  Nursery  then  became  act- 
ually quiet. 

H.  Auton  was  an  older  boy  than  some  of  the  others.  He  slept 
in  the  ark,  and  had  his  own  way  on  the  "  back  side  "  of  it.  He 
used  to  tell  marvelous  stories  of  what  he  had  never  seen.  His  nar- 
rations of  imaginary  puppies  which  we  were  to  have  if  we  were 
good  boys,  and  vast  quantities  of  maple  sugar  which  some  day  or 
other  perhaps  would  fall  to  our  share,  kept  us  awake  for  hours. 
He  was  a  neat  and  talented  fellow,  having  always  an  eye  to  the 
"main  chance." 

Cold  shortened  Johnny-cake  was  a  compound  intimately  associ- 
ated with  my  nursery  life.  It  was  baked  on  a  board,  and  was  made 
of  flour  instead  of  meal,  with  no  leaven.  Although  slightly  dyspep- 


30 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


tic  in  its  character,  we  all  rose  superior  to  its  attacks.  We  were  al- 
ways hungry,  and  partook  of  it  at  unearthly  hours.  We  would  bite 
it  out  into  all  manner  of  shapes,  such  as  the  heads  of  animals,  birds, 

and  men.  While  we  ate, 
if  not  in  bed,  we  never 
kept  still,  but  walked 
about  in  procession,  hop- 
ping from  one  figure  on 
the  carpet  to  another, 
playing  a  game  called 
"Poison."  This  Johnny- 
cake  figured  largely  in 
our  morning  bed-stances. 
H.  Anton  rigged  a  pulley 
on  the  top  of  the  south- 
west post  of  the  big  bed, 
hitching  it  on  the  cur- 
tain-hook and  bringing 
down  the  cords  to  be  se- 
cured around  the  back 
of  the  high  head-board. 
To  this  apparatus  was  attached  a  basket,  which  H.  Auton  filled 
with  the  precious  Johnny-cake  and  hoisted  to  the  mast-head,  hold- 
ing in  his  own  hands,  under  his  pillow,  the  governing  ropes. 

The  contents  of  this  mysterious  pannier  were  to  be  lowered  at 
daylight,  and  administered  to  such  individuals  in  the  bed  as  the 
autocrat  should  himself  determine. 

With  the  early  dawn  came  a  little  rustling  from  all  quarters  of 
the  big  bed  and  the  jolly-boat.  A  ghostly  procession  of  white  forms 


AUTON  NURSERY. 


31 


wended  its  way  from  all  quarters.  The  trundle-bed  gave  up  its 
little  citizens.  The  front  side  and  middle  of  the  ark  were  all 
agog,  the  youthful  crew  climbing  over  the  jaded  anatomy  of  Deb'rah, 
and  nestling  down  around  the  Johnny-cake  owner  with  eager  jaws. 
No  sweet-bread  or  fillet  of  later  years  was  ever  so  sweet  as  that  lit- 
tle bit  of  cold,  indigestible  compound  doled  out  to  us  on  those  dark 
and  early  mornings,  as  we  sat,  like  savages,  in  our  night-gowns, 
crouched  around  our  Johnny-cake  chief. 


This  primitive  breakfast  fitted  us  for  an  arduous  journey  "  over 
the  Andes,"  which  we  proceeded  to  do  at  once.  There  was  a  pict- 
ure in  one  of  our  nursery  books  representing  a  long  train  of  mules, 
laden  with  merchandise,  toiling  over  the  difficult  passes  of  the  An- 
des, and  carrying  to  tide-water  the  produce  of  the  country.  This 
old  wood-cut  filled  our  youthful  imaginations  with  a  desire  to  act  it 
out. 


32 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


The  girls  and  boys,  with  Ben  Jackson,  the  negro,  on  hands  and 
knees,  in  night-gowns  and  night-drawers,  the  oldest  and  biggest 
first,  and  then  the  little  ones  following  on,  with  the  black  boy  fill- 
ing up  the  rear,  would  start  from  the  southwest  bed-post  of  the  big 
bed,  commencing  at  the  top  of  the  bolster  on  our  trip  over  the 
mountains.  Plunging  under  the  bed-clothes  we  wriggled  our  way, 
one  after  the  other,  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  bed.  Then  we 
pulled  away  the  ends  of  the  blankets  and  the  sheets  down  there, 
and  wormed  ourselves  out  from  under  these  to  the  bottom-ends 
of  the  bed-clothes  of  the  trundle-bed  below.  Then  we  passed  up 

through  the  whole  length  of 
these  to  the  trundle-bed  bol- 
ster, where  we  emerged,  one 
after  another,  in  a  very  dis- 
heveled condition.  Taking 
breath  at  this  big  pillow,  we 
continued  our  wearisome 
march  over  the  outside  of  the 
little  bed,  mounted  the  foot  of 
the  ark,  and  pushed  on  to  our 
first  starting-point.  For  merchandise,  we  carried  on  our  backs  all 
the  pillows  we  could  get,  the  kitten  and  the  puppy  slung  in  hand- 
kerchiefs across  our  backs,  and  we  presented  quite  a  distressed  and 
business-like  appearance,  as  the  long  line  of  ruddy  boys  and  girls, 
neighing  and  braying  like  horses  and  mules,  would  disappear  and 
emerge  at  regular  intervals  from  the  stuffy  bed-clothes. 

Suddenly  some  new  idea  would  strike  the  procession,  when, 
presto  !  away  flew  puppy  and  kitten,  up  went  the  bed-clothes,  out 
from  all  parts  of  the  blankets  would  come  white  legs  and  night- 


AUTON  NURSERY. 


33 


gowns  (the  disjecta  membra  of  Auton  nursery),  which  came  to  a 
standstill  before  the  wood  fire. 


There  is  little  doubt  but  these  expeditions  thoroughly  digested 
all  the  "  shortened  Johnny-cake," 
which  we  had  consumed,  and  made 
us  ravenous  for  the  hot  breakfast 
which  Rosannah  had  been  preparing 
in  the  kitchen  below. 

In  Auton  nursery  was  a  famous 
stand  made  of  oak,  with  a  crack 
through  the  middle  of  its 
round    top.      This    space 
was  always  filled  with  the 
remains  of  the  soap  and 
sand    left    by    Deb'rah's 
scrubbing-brush,  and  which  we  used  to  pick 
out  with  pins.     Around  this  modest  bit  of 
furniture  we  took  our  tea.     It  was  an  in- 
teresting  and    healthy   sight   to   watch   a 
bevy  of   girls  and  boys  in  high,  checked 
aprons  and  ruffled  collars,  with  red  cheeks  and  shining  curls,  crim- 

3 


34 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


son,  pouting  lips  and  butter- teeth  (as  we  used  to  call  the  second 
set  in  front),  chatting  like  magpies ;  all  drinking,  eating,  and  talk- 
ing at  once ;  all  good-natured,  happy,  and  uproarious.  No  political 
questions  disturbed  our  brains,  no  dictum  of  society  divided  our 
councils.  The  shadow  of  the  cow's  foot  in  our  milk  and  water  was 
the  most  serious  object  which  attracted  our  attention,  and  a  healthy 

rivalry  as  to  who  could 
bite  out  the  greatest 
number  of  the  little 
hearts  from  Mr.  Co- 
rey's cookies  in  a  given 
number  of  minutes 


alone  created  excite- 
ment. As  the  south- 
-!p»  ill  west  bed-post  was  the 
"~  "  famous  starting-point 
for  all  our  imaginary 
bed  expeditions,  so  the 
northeast  one  was  the  pole  around  which  W.  Auton,  alias  "  Ante- 
lope," and  Ben  Jackson,  the  black  boy,  performed  their  celebrated 
flying  act.  This  circus-trick  consisted  in  running  from  the  bolster, 
in  stocking-feet,  catching  hold  of  the  post  with  the  left  hand  and 
swinging  completely  about  in  a  circle  through  the  air,  landing 
on  the  bed  again.  Antelope  and  Ben  were  the  two  athletes  of 
the  nursery,  and  were  respected  and  obeyed  accordingly.  Against 
these  same  bed -posts,  also,  the  children  pressed  their  oranges,  after 
reaming  holes  in  them  with  their  fore-fingers,  preparatory  to  the 
kneading  and  sucking  process. 

Our  favorite  nursery  disease  was  sore  throat.     This  malady  ena- 


AUTON  NURSERY. 


35 


bled  us  to  stay  away  from  school  and  wear  flannel  about  our  necks ; 
yet  we  were  not  ill  enough  to  leave  off  play,  nor  too  ill  to  forego 
Malaga  grapes  and  lemonade.  It  was  an  ailment  possessing  suffi- 
cient advantages  to  be  prayed  for,  and  the  boy  fortunate  enough 
to  have  swollen  tonsils  was  an  ob- 
ject of  envy.  A  croupy  cough  was 
another  coveted  disease.  So  desir- 
able was  this  that  W.  Auton  per- 
suaded his  younger  sister  to  open  the 
nursery  window  on  a  cold  winter's 
day  in  order  that  he  might  hang  his 
head  out  and  "  hoarsen  up,"  as  we 
called  it. 

These  infantile  devices  often  over- 
shot the  mark,  keeping  us  in  bed  for 
weeks.  I  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude, 
however,  to  raisins,  which  no  amount 
of  indigestion  will  ever  eradicate. 
This  fruit  certainly  made  our  path- 
way to  knowledge  an  easier  one,  for  those  sudden  stomach-aches, 
which  were  invented  to  come  on  about  school-time,  were  imme- 
diately driven  away  by  a  small  fat  bunch  of  these  grapes,  together 
with  a  large  greening  apple  stuffed  into  our  pockets  to  eat  at 
recess. 


CHAPTER  FOURTH. 


MR.   AND   MRS.  JOHN  HONZY. 

N  interesting  play  in  Auton  nursery  was  called 
"  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Honzy."  The  popular 
element  about  it  was  that  it  required  the 
"  full  strength  of  the  company "  to  bring 
out  its  entire  capacity  for  fun.  The  game 
consisted  in  acting  a  chapter  in  the  life  of 
grown-up  people  as  we  imagined  it  to  be. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Honzy  were  H.  Auton  and  E. 
Auton  (girl).  Then  came  the  children  :  W. 
Auton,  H.  Auton  (girl),  and  C.  Auton,  to- 
gether with  Ben  Jackson,  the  black  boy. 
A.  Auton  was  the  family  horse,  and  was 
kept  in  the  closet,  while  the  kitten  had  on 
a  night-cap  and  personated  the  neighbor's 
child.  We  were  all  put  to  bed  on  the  nur- 
sery floor,  and  covered  up  with  baby-blankets,  towels,  newspapers, 
and  everything  which  could  serve  as  bed-clothing.  The  children 
were  instructed  to  snore  as  loudly  as  possible,  and  one  of  them  to 
yell  at  the  top  of  his  lungs  in  order  to  wake  up  the  parents,  who 
were  curled  up  on  the  floor  in  the  corner,  over  by  the  bedroom 
door.  Mrs.  Honzy,  like  a  good  mother,  of  course,  sat  up  and  took 
her  screaming  child  in  her  lap.  By  turning  him  over  in  all  possible 


MR.  AND  MRS.  JOHN  HONZY. 


37 


ways  she  discovered  a  large,  imaginary  pin  sticking  into  him.  This 
she  extracted,  apparently  with  great  difficulty,  and  then  proceeded 
to  warm  the  baby's  drink.  Putting  a  bath-towel  about  her  pet's 
neck  for  a  bib,  she  commenced  to  feed  it  with  pounded  cracker  and 
milk.  The  child  was  taught  to  reject  this  food  in  regular  baby 
fashion,  which  immediately  provoked  Mrs.  Honzy  to  such  a  frenzy 
that  her  darling  was  thrown  on  its  back,  and  the 
cracker  stuffed  down  its  throat  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet.  The  milk  escaping  from  its  mouth  was 
caught  in  the  pap-spoon  in  the  most  approved 
"  Aunt  Betsey "  style,  some  of  it  turned  back 
again  into  the  mouth,  while  a  greater  quantity 
found  its  way  down  the  neck  and  the  towel-bib. 
The  babe  was  then  whipped,  shaken,  and  jounced 
down  on  to  its  floor-bed,  and  went  to  sleep  with 
its  thumb  in  its  mouth  after  two  or  three  lugu- 
brious and  long-drawn  sobs.  After  a  very  dis- 
tressing night  all  the  family  woke  up  and  went 
through  the  motions  of  dressing,  and  washing 
themselves  with  invisible  water.  Every  child 
was  then  immediately  afflicted  with  sore  fingers, 
lame  arms,  and  rheumatic  legs.  So  Mother  Honzy 
brought  out  her  invaluable  salve,  made  of  orange-peel,  soap,  and 
saliva.  This  she  proceeded  to  spread  upon  bits  of  linen  and  bound 
up  the  fingers  and  aching  joints  of  the  Honzy  tribe. 

Such  a  regiment  of  white  "  cots  "  and  bandaged  toes  was  never 
seen  except  after  a  battle.  It  was  time  now  to  go  a  "  buckle-berry- 
ing." So  the  family  prepared  itself  for  this  important  excursion. 
The  girls  were  dressed  up  in  all  the  poke  bonnets,  high-crowned 


38 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


"  leghorns,"  green  veils,  and  old  calashes  that  could  be  gathered 
from  the  nursery-closet  bandboxes,  while  wide  lace  collars  and 
stiff  little  "jiggers,"  made  to  fill  out  the  mutton-legged  sleeves  of 
our  grandmother's  dresses,  were  freely  brought  into  requisition. 
Enormous  silk  bags,  and  mother's  scissors  and  pincushion,  were  hung 
at  the  side,  spectacles  were  put  on  nose,  and  old-fashioned  mits 
adorned  the  hands.  To  these  were  added  wide  pieces  of  different- 
colored  morocco,  laced  up  over  the  wrists. 


"  Old  Buff,"  the  family  horse  (A.  Auton),  was  now  led  out  from 
the  nursery-closet  stable,  where  he  had  been  browsing  among  the 
medicines  and  eating  his  provender  of  pounded  soda-cracker,  and 
sour  "  sorrel  "  pulled  from  the  "  upper  garden."  He  neighed,  and 
whinnied,  and  stamped  his  feet  on  the  children's  toes,  just  like  any 


MR.  AND  MRS.   JOHN  HONZY.  39 

grown-up  horse  in  the  city.  He  kept  off  imaginary  flies  with  his 
impromptu  tail,  made  from  a  bundle  of  green  lily-stalks  pulled  from 
the  same  upper-garden.  A  pair  of  bits  made  of  pine  wood  were 
put  in  his  mouth,  and  a  string  of  jingly-jongly  bells  hung  about  his 
neck.  A  large  dinner-bell  was  now  put  aboard  the  chairs  which 
served  for  a  family  wagon,  and  the  Honzys  were  ready  to  start. 
Tin  kettles,  toy  pails,  and  other  nursery  utensils  were  freely 
brought  into  use  to  hold  the  imaginary  huckle-berries,  and  thus 
equipped  the  signal  was  given  to  commence  the  journey.  The 
horse  began  to  trot  up  and  down.  The  sleigh-bells  started  their 
jargon.  The  elder  Honzys  cried  Whoa !  and  Get  up  !  The  younger 
Horizys  screamed  out  that  they  already  saw  the  fruit  growing  on 
every  side.  Ben  Jackson,  the  black  boy,  dropped  his  hat,  and  had 
to  get  off  and  pick  it  up,  while  the  neighbor's  kitten,  in  its  night- 
cap, mewed  with  delight  at  the  expected  huckle-berries.  The  old 
nursery  floor  rose  and  fell  with  the  stamping  and  galloping.  The 
air  resounded  with  mews  and  screams.  The  big  bell  was  contin- 
ually ringing  for  people  to  "  clear  the  track,"  while  poor  toothless 
Deb'rah  was  vainly  beating  the  air,  imploring  us  to  "  cease  the 
racket."  Such  a  babel  brought  its  usual  quietus  in  the  forms  of 
Mother  and  Father  Auton,  who  appeared  at  the  nursery  door  and 
commanded  silence,  — you  might  hear  "a  pin  drop  "  in  an  instant. 

This  interruption  was  lucky,  because  the  party  had  just  arrived 
at  the  "  berrying  ground,"  and  were  already  engaged  in  picking  the 
largest  specimens  from  all  sides  of  the  room.  The  pails  were  filled 
in  "  no  time,"  and  the  family  were  at  home  again  in  "  a  twinkling." 
Somebody  squeezed  the  kitten  in  the  wrong  place,  which  caused 
the  neighbor's  child  to  squall,  leap  from  the  flying  vehicle,  and  rush 
under  the  trundle-bed  with  H.  Auton's  night-cap  on,  and  its  long, 


40 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


black  apron  petticoat,  half  off,  dragging  behind  it.  The  "  cots  " 
and  the  "  bandages  "  were  flung  to  the  four  winds.  The  old  toggery 
was  dropped  on  the  floor  for  Deb'rah  to  pick  up,  while  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Honzy  lost  their  assumed  authority  at  once,  and  mixed  with  demo- 
cratic familiarity  among  their  Auton  brethren. 


CHAPTER  FIFTH. 

ROOMS  IN  AUTON  HOUSE. 

TRANGE  to  tell,  Auton  House  had  but  one 
bedroom.  There  were  lots  of  other  rooms, 
such  as  the  "  Green-room"  and  the  "  Din- 
ing-room "  and  the  "Back  and  Front  Draw- 
ing rooms,"  and  the  "  Library,"  and  the 
"  Middle  chamber,"  and  the  "White-room," 
and  "  Mother's  room,"  and  the  "  Baby- 
house,"  and  "  Rosannah's  room,"  and  the 
"  boys'  room,"  and  "  Fre'bun's  room,"  and 
the  "Glass-house,"  and  the  "  Nursery," 
but  only  one  "  Bedroom."  In  this  cham- 
ber all  the  strange  new  maids  slept  and 
got  up  early.  It  was  as  "  cold  as  a  barn,"  and  had  a  fire-board  in 
front  of  the  fire-place  with  a  painting  upon  it  representing  my 
father  and  uncle  when  children,  holding  a  steel-gray  squirrel  perched 
on  their  hands,  and  attached  to  a  small  chain  of  the  same  gray  color 
dangling  over  their  fingers.  The  boys  wore  large  ruffled  collars 
and  roundabout  jackets  buttoned  up  to  the  throat,  with  their  hair 
cut  short  in  front,  leaving  it  long  behind.  In  this  room,  also,  was 
a  tall  wicker  basket  which  held  soiled  linen;  W.  Auton  used  to 
leap  from  the  floor  upon  the  rim  of  it,  where,  see-sawing  for  a  mo- 
ment, he  would  pitch  head-foremost  into  the  depths  below.  This 


42 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


bedroom  opened  out  of  the  nursery,  and  was  peeped  into  but 
shunned  by  all  the  "  young  ones  "  as  a  haunted  spot.  It  was  so 
near  to  our  nursery  paradise,  yet  such  a  poky  locality,  that  these 
two  chambers  stood  in  our  vocabulary  for  the  "  good  "  and  the 

"  wicked  place."  We  peopled 
this  latter  neighborhood,  with  all 
those  dreadful  characters  which 
disturbed  our  infant  imaginations, 
and  shuddered  lest  at  that  very 
instant  that  gloomy  abode  might 
conceal  a  horrid  creature,  known 
to  all  the  children  by  the  name  of 
"  Bloody-bones,"  who  went  about 
killing  babies  and  hiding  their 
bodies  under  the  sand-hill  in  the 
rear  of  Aunt  Malbone's  house. 
There  were  connected  with  each 
of  the  chambers  in  Auton  House 
most  delightful  and  pleasing  asso- 
ciations. With  the  little  Green-room  in  particular  these  associa- 
tions were  especially  charming.  In  it  were  concentrated  all  the 
wit  and  frolic  of  Auton  House.  On  Sunday  evenings  the  pleasant- 
est  set  of  people  gathered  there.  On  either  side  the  broad  hearth 
sat  our  parents  —  the  dearest,  the  funniest,  the  most  congenial  of 
spirits.  My  father  Auton  reclined  in  the  great  arm-chair,  close  by 
the  long  window,  out  of  which  one  of  his  hot  hands  was  always 
hung  to  cool,  while  he  puffed  his  aromatic  cigar,  and  recounted  to 
us  his  wonderful  story,  of  being  shut  up  in  a  tomb  when  he  was  a 
boy,  and  of  his  playing  a  tune  upon  the  great  iron  doors  with  the 


ROOMS  IN  AUTON  HOUSE. 


43 


thigh-bones  which  he  found  scattered  about  him.  As  the  evening 
wore  on  in  trooped  his  favorite  nephews,  Ned  and  Ben,  William  and 
George,  Can  and  Levi,  to  smoke  the  Sunday  pipe.  To  these  were 
added  a  large  detachment  of  home  production,  and  the  "  younger 
fry  "  from  the  nursery  completed  the  family 
party.  The  air  was  full  of  fragrant  smoke 
(which  some  folks  dislike).  The  sputtering  fire 
sent  forth  its  cheerful  blaze.  The  round  con- 
vex mirror,  with  its  black  dragons  and  gilded 
sconces,  reflected  the  genial  brightness,  while 
the  flickering  light  on  the  "  Bear  picture," 
« The  Marriage  of  The  Virgin,"  "  The  Two 
Mackerel,"  and  "  The  Horatii  and  the  Curatii," 
completed  a  scene  of  comfort  and  good  cheer. 
These  evenings  began  with  a  bountiful  tea. 
The  family  was  so  large,  however,  that  we 
"  kids "  were  kept  in  check  in  the  nursery 
until  the  older  parties  had  finished.  Listening 
and  giggling  at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  we  awaited 
the  signal  to  descend.  Then,  whooping  and 
shouting,  sliding  on  balusters,  three  steps  at  a 
time,  while  poor  Deb'rah  was  beseeching  us  to 
make  less  noise,  the  invading  host  came  thun- 
dering down  to  tea.  Fish-balls,  brown-bread  toast,  hot  biscuits, 
baked  beans,  Indian  pudding,  and  quince  marmalade  vanished  be- 
fore these  hungry  Philistines  as  quickly  as  a  western  wheat  field 
succumbs  to  the  advance  of  the  caterpillar.  That  it  was  possible 
to  pack  into  a  child's  stomach,  holding  a  pint,  more  than  enough 
to  fill  a  quart,  was  beautifully  demonstrated  whenever  an  empty 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


Auton  boy  came  within  hail  of  any  article  in  the  above  category. 
A  "  symposium  of  smoke  "  was  instituted  in  the  little  Green-room 
after  tea.  The  hospitable  front  door  constantly  admitted  some  fresh 
addition  to  the  genial  company  —  either  "  Tris,"  who  hitched 

"  Katie  in  the  chaise  "  at  the  tree- 
box,  or  kind  friends  from  "  over  the 
bridge,"  increased  the  number  of 
welcome  guests.  Auton  nursery  was 
now  drawn  upon  to  furnish  amuse- 
ment. One  boy  spoke  "  On  Linden 
when  the  sun  was  low "  with  so 
much  gesticulation  and  fervor  that 
it  was  dangerous  to  go  near  him. 
Another  one  drew  the  forms  of  ani- 
i-— _.  mals  in  the  air  at  lightning  speed, 
and  with  so  many  flourishes  and  cur- 
licues that  the  company  kept  them- 
selves at  a  respectful  distance  from 
his  revolving  fist.  The  youngest 
of  all,  with  hair  sticking  up  like  a 
feather  -  duster,  whistled  cleverly 
quite  difficult  airs,  keeping  time  with  his  fingers  on  the  door-panel, 
which  he  used  for  a  drum ;  while  still  another  cut  with  scissors,  from 
black  paper,  capital  likenesses  of  the  company  in  the  shortest  possi- 
ble time.  After  these  harmless  performances  candles  were  brought, 
and  we  all  repaired  to  the  drawing-room  to  sing  psalm  tunes,  after 
the  ancient  New  England  fashion.  The  old  organ  had  stood  in  this 
room  so  long  that  it  seemed  to  be  a  relation  of  the  family.  It  had 
a  fluted  front  of  flowered  cherry  damask,  which  is  as  intimately  as- 


ROOMS  IN  AUTON  HOUSE.  45 

sociated  with  my  boyhood  as  was  Aunt  Moody's  stubbed  thumb,  or 
Deb'rah's  scanty  front  hair  which  we  had  combed  almost  out  of  her 
head.  The  organ  had  also  a  crowd  of  funny  ivory  stops,  labeled 
"  Tutti "  and  "  Haut-boy  "  and  "  Reed,"  which  squeaked  and  talked 
to  us  in  a  most  familiar  manner,  and  which  we  regarded  much  in 
the  same  sort  of  friendly  way  as  we  looked  upon  the  boys  in  the 
neighborhood  who  used  to  come  into  our  yard  to  play  with  us. 
The  Tutti  stop  in  particular  always  made  us  laugh,  the  name  was 
such  a  queer  one.  One  of  the  girls  "  presided  "  at  the  instrument, 
while  a  little  boy  "  blew."  "  We  don't  want  any  coatee  tunes,"  said 
Father  Auton ;  "  give  us  a  good  long-waister."  There  is  a  smack 
of  seriousness  suggested  by  the  devotional  swing  and  dignified 
rhythm  of  such  old-fashioned  airs  as  "  Bangor  "  and  "  Denmark," 
which  communicated  itself  to  the  assembly.  "  All  hail  the  power 
of  Jesus'  name  "  was  always  given  with  effect,  the  whole  strength 
of  the  company  being  expended  on  the  oft-repeated  chorus,  "  And 
crown  him  Lord  of  all."  Also  the  last  line  in  the  first  verse  of  "  Ye 
Christian  heroes,"  "And  plant  the  rose  of  Sharon  there."  This 
was  never  sung  without  a  visible  quaver  in  Father  Auton's  voice 
as  he  sat,  with  closed  eyes,  his  hands  clasped  across  his  ample  fig- 
ure. .  .  . 

Mother  Auton  was  subject  to  what  we  children  called  "  spaz- 
zums."  These  were  in  reality  severe  attacks  of  dyspepsia,  and 
would  seize  her  suddenly  at  the  breakfast-table  with  but  little  pre- 
monition. The  pain  was  so  intense  as  to  nearly  stop  her  breath, 
and  while  it  continued  she  was  always  in  a  critical  condition.  We 
children  could  tell  when  these  attacks  approached  by  noticing  her 
nostrils,  which  were  slightly  distended  when  suffering  from  pain 


46  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

she  wished  to  conceal.  "  There  !  "  we  would  say  to  each  other, 
"  mother's  going  to  have  a  spazzum ;  don't  you  see  how  her  nos- 
trils stick  out  ?  " 

Once  fastened  upon  her,  these  spazzums  never  let  go  until  Dr. 
Possett  had  poured  down  McMunn's  Elixir  by  the  table-spoonful. 
Every  stitch  of  clothing  had  to  be  loosened  while  Deb'rah,  and 
Ros#nnah,  and  father,  and  the  new  girl,  and  our  older  sisters  rubbed 
and  rubbed  the  "  small  of  her  back "  until  the  skin  was  almost 
rubbed  away.  We  children,  frightened  to  death,  congregated  in 
the  upper  entry,  and  inquired  of  every  passer-by  if  "  mother 
would  n't  die  ? "  Some  of  us  burst  into  tears,  while  others  said 
they  "  felt "  as  much  as  we  did,  but  "  were  n't  going  to  cry  about 
it."  The  weaker  ones  used  to  repair  to  the  lonely,  back  drawing- 
room  to  pray  in  the  dark  that  the  spazzum  might  pass  off.  How 
strange  it  is,  that  with  this  recollection  comes  another,  equally 
vivid,  but  just  as  quaint  as  the  former  one  was  sad.  It  is  the  pecul- 
iar odor  of  the  black  hair-cloth  seating  of  the  mahogany  chair 
where  we  knelt  to  offer  our  petition.  That  queer,  half-musty,  half- 
hairy,  varnishy  perfume  is  as  distinct  in  my  recollection  as  is  the 
melancholy  occasion  which  bowed  my  head  upon  it.  These  sudden 
attacks  terribly  afflicted  our  tender-hearted  father.  I  can  see  him 
plainly  at  this  moment  flying  about  with  anxious  countenance  and 
wild  expression,  tumbling  over  chairs  and  slamming  doors  as  he 
rushed  up  and  down  stairs  for  alcohol,  salt,  or  hot  water. 

On  one  lugubrious  morning  when  Mother  Auton  was  groaning, 
and  the  whole  household  was  rubbing  her  for  "  dear  life,"  a  favorite 
spaniel  belonging  to  T.  Auton  took  it  into  his  head  to  have  a  fit,  and 
flew  around  the  dining-room  at  a  terrible  rate,  foaming  at  the  mouth, 
etc.  Just  at  this  juncture  Father  Auton  appeared  at  the  dining- 


ROOMS  IN  AUTON   HOUSE. 


47 


room  door;  and  seeing  the  dog  covered  with  saliva,  floundering 
and  kicking  under  his  feet,  while  all  the  children  were  watching 
him  from  the  tops  of  tables  and  chairs ;  he  became  transfixed  with 
emotion.  At  last  he  shouted  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  "  D — n  it ! 
was  ever  a  mortal  so  put  upon  ?  Wife  dying  up-stairs  —  mad-dog 
down  —  get  out !  " 

Happily  neither  of  these  direful  calamities  happened ;  both  our 
mother  and  the  spaniel  speedily  recovered,  but  what  Father  Auton 
screamed  out  on  this  occasion  was  never  forgotten. 


CHAPTER   SIXTH. 


THE  MIDDLE  CHAMBER. 

HE  middle  chamber  possessed  the  rare  dig- 
nity of  being  the  spot  where  nearly  every 
Auton  first  saw  the  light.  There  was  an 
odor  of  new  flannel  and  powder-puff  about 
it  which  never  quite  departed,  while  a  de- 
pressing stillness  pervaded  the  apartment 
on  those  periodic  occasions  when  we  chil- 
dren were  allowed  to  view  the  last  "  new- 
comer "  from  an  unknown  country. 

The  "  fresh  Anton  "  was  carried,  for  its 
primal  bath,  into  a  small  adjoining  room 
called  the  "  Library."  Here  Miss  Betsey 

Arnold  held  the  struggling  stranger  gently  on  her  lap  while  the 
long  file  of  girls  and  boys  from  the  nursery  marched  in  to  pass 
judgment  upon  it.  "What  a  nose!"  "He  looks  like  a  monkey." 
"Look  what  a  face  it's  making."  "He's  the  ugliest  baby  I  ever 
saw,"  etc.  These  ingenuous  remarks  were  the  unbiased  opinions 
pronounced  upon  every  new  Auton  as  it  appeared.  They  say  that 
"  children  and  fools  speak  the  truth."  The  middle  chamber  was 
also  the  room  which  our  big  brother  occupied  when  he  came  home 
on  a  ^isit.  He  always  arrived  by  the  boat  train  which  reached 
the  city  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning.  We  children,  who  held 
him  in  great  veneration,  never  caught  sight  of  him  on  such  visits 


THE   MIDDLE   CHAMBER, 


49 


until  breakfast  time,  when  he  sedately  descended  in  his  slippers 
to  read  the  morning  paper  in  quiet  reserve.  He  was  his  "  moth- 
er's hope,"  and  his  "  father's  joy,"  —  and  well  he  might  be,  for 
he  was  held  up  before  us  as  an  example  of  everything  that  was 
noble  and  worthy  of  imitation  —  so  the  chamber  had  to  be  well 
aired  before  he  came.  It  seems  but  yesterday  that  all  these  prepa- 
rations were  going  on.  Mother  Auton  in  the  cold  room  clearing 
out  the  drawers  to  make  way  for  J.  Auton's  underclothes,  the  com- 
pany pin-cushion  hauled  out  and  put  in  place  under  the  mirror, 
the  best  comb  and  brush  laid  in  a  convenient  spot  for  use,  and  the 
blue  china  pitchers  filled  with  the  pump-water.  Oftentimes,  at  early 
dawn,  we  could  hear  the  creak  of  the  carriage  wheels  when  the  ve- 
hicle stopped  before  the  house,  and  the  thud  of  his  trunk  upon  the 
sidewalk.  He  frequently  roused  up  Deb'rah  by  rattling  the  blinds 
in  the  back  yard  with  a  clothes- 
pole  to  let  him  in  ;  but  Mother 
Auton  generally  anticipated  any 
such  manoeuvre,  and  greeted  her 
son  even  before  the  hack-man  had 
gotten  upon  his  box.  From  our 
snug  quarters  in  the  big  bed  we 
could  hear  the  dull  boom  of  the 
heavy  front  door  as  it  shut  again, 
then  a  little  desultory  under- 
toned  conversation,  a  pair  of  boots 
dropped  on  the  outside  of  his 
apartment,  and  all  was  quiet. 
The  middle  chamber  was  also  the 


spare  room,"  set  apart  for  invited  guests  at  Auton  House. 

4 


Here 


« 


50  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  McLacken  slept  when  they  paid  us  a  visit  from  New 
Haven.  Mr.  McLacken  had  a  neck  so  thin  and  long  that  it  re- 
quired folds  upon  folds  of  cravat  to  build  it  up  to  the  standard  size 
of  ordinary  necks.  He  was  always  on  a  strict  diet,  and  was  con- 
stantly going  up-stairs  to  take  his  medicine.  Here  reposed  blonde 
Cousin  Fanny,  and  tired  Theodore,  who  had  a  very  long  upper  lip 
and  went  to  sleep  in  his  chair  every  evening ;  and  here  rested 
Cousin  John,  who  had  a  Roman  nose  and  chafed  his  hands  together 
whenever  he  met  you ;  and  sprightly  Cousin  Maria  with  her  beam- 
ing smile  and  her  flying  cap-strings. 

These  cousins  were  all  from  Boston,  where  they  had  the  enor- 
mous frog-pond,  and  ice-creams  so  large  that  no  boy  could  eat  any 
more  than  from  the  top  of  one  of  "  them  "  as  far  down  as  the  rim 
of  the  glass.  They  had  Boston  trunks,  owned  Boston  chaises,  ate 
Boston  cream-cakes  from  Mrs.  Meyers',  and  "  took  "  "  Boston  Tran- 
scripts." They  drank  "  cambric  tea,"  and  ate  stale  bread,  and  when 
they  spoke  of  what  was  going  on  in  their  city  they  said  "  with  us," 
all  the  time. 

Our  big  brother  remarked  that  it  did  n't  matter  what  our  cousins 
ate  or  drank,  or  what  forms  of  expression  they  used,  so  long  as  they 
had  "  public  spirit  "  which  we  in  our  town  did  n't  have  "a  spec  of." 
We  did  n't  dare  ask  what  "  public  spirit "  meant ;  but  among  our- 
selves concluded  that  it  had  reference  to  some  sort  of  liquor  which 
the  Boston  Mayor  drank. 

Cousin  Fannie  wore  caps  with  lots  of  ribbons,  and  gave  us  sugared 
flag-root  which  stung  our  stomachs. 

The  middle  chamber  also  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  being  the 
apartment  where  the  ladies  took  off  their  "  things  "  when  we  had 
a  party.  Its  mahogany  bed-posts  were  elaborately  ornamented  with 


THE  MIDDLE   CHAMBER.  51 

carved  pine-apples  and  their  spiked  leaves.  The  red  silk  curtains 
about  the  bed  and  windows  had  a  deep  fringe  of  tassels  and  balls, 
and  the  pillow-cases  and  bed-linen  were  the  best  that  Auton  House 
afforded.  But  for  all  that  the  room  smelt  strange  and  had  a  prim, 
shut-up,  visitor-like  air  about  it.  A  picture  of  Ariadne  left  on  the 
sea-shore  and  waiting  for  her  clothes  hung  just  over  the  pier-glass. 
My  grandfather's  and  grandmother's  portraits  looked  steadily  down 
from  the  walls,  and  kept  in  awe  any  little  boy  or  girl  who  dared  to 
talk  above  a  whisper. 

The  deep  mahogany  wardrobe,  made  by  Josey  Rawson,  and 
reaching  to  the  ceiling,  contained  within  its  ample  bosom  the  party 
gowns,  the  old  lace,  the  ancient  fur  boas,  and  the  high  "  leghorn 
hats  "  of  my  mother.  And  here  rested  the  tall  Canton  jars  which 
came  from  China  in  the  "  Ann  and  Hope,"  and  which  "  once  upon  a 
time  "  were  filled  with  Canton  rock  candy  with  white  strings  running 
through  it.  When  the  silver  branches  shed  their  mellow  radiance 
around  the  middle  chamber,  and  the  bright  firelight  danced  over 
the  newly-scoured  brasses,  and  the  room  got  thoroughly  warmed  up, 
it  presented  a  genial  and  comfortable  appearance,  —  that  is,  for  an 
apartment  set  apart  as  this  was  from  all  the  rest ;  but  we  children 
kept  clear  of  it,  for  it  always  seemed  to  be  saying  to  us,  "  Tread 
lightly,  children,  I  am  the  spare-room !  "  On  state  occasions  the 
middle  chamber  was  at  "  its  best."  Deb'rah  and  the  maid  had 
hardly  finished  their  folding,  and  dusting,  and  putting  away,  before 
the  door-bell  commenced  ringing,  and  word  was  passed  from  mouth 
to  mouth  in  the  nursery,  "The  company's  come  !  "  "  The  compa- 
ny 's  come ! " 

The  emotions  which  rambled  up  and  down  my  bosom  at  such 
junctures  cannot  be  described.  Faint  photographs  of  them,  how- 


52 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


ever,  have  visited  me,  from  time  to  time,  since  my  boyhood,  as  I 
have  listened  to  the  bright  uproar  of  some  "  grown-up  "  ball-room. 

I  used  to  be  in  such  an  excited  state  that  Deb'rah  would  have  to 
dress  me  up  before  dark. 

The  new  suit,  just  home  from  Aunt  Nancy  Miller's,  with  its  brass 

buttons,  and  broad, 
ruffled  collar,  was 
buttoned  up  and 
pinned  down  before 
sunset.  Hands 
were  washed  (a  bad 
job  well  over),  and 
hair  smoothed,  if 
such  a  thing  was 
possible  with  a  tan- 
gled mass  of  yel- 
low tow  full  of 
"widows'  peaks  " 
and  "cow-licks." 
As  soon  as  possible 
I  sprang  from  the 
nursery,  first  down 
to  the  front  door, 
where  black  Fre'bun  stood  in  white  cotton  gloves,  and  a  pointed, 
woolly  tuft  like  a  steeple  on  the  top  of  his  head.  Then  I  sped 
through  the  two  drawing-rooms  which  were  being  lighted,  then 
slyly  peeped  into  the  supper-room,  only  to  be  driven  out  by  Rosan- 
nah  and  Mother  Auton,  who  were  surveying  the  tables  for  the  last 
time.  Then  up  the  front  stairs  like  a  shot,  through  my  mother's 


THE  MIDDLE   CHAMBER.  53 

room,  where  the  wood  fire  had  fallen  down,  then  round  by  the  third 
story  stairs,  down  the  upper  hall  and  into  the  middle  chamber. 
Here  I  stopped,  breathless.  The  "company"  had,  indeed,  appeared 
in  the  shape  of  two  old  "  goodies  "  who  made  it  a  point  to  arrive 
on  the  notch  of  time,  and  had  already  deposited  their  "  things  "  on 
the  bed. 

While  Deb'rah  adjusted  their  rumpled  gowns  they  surveyed  the 
staring  boy  before  them,  and  then  remarked :  "  Why,  C.  Auton, 
don't  you  know  us  ?  I  'm  Cousin  Mary,  and  I  am  Cousin  Sephronia." 
Then  they  turned  to  each  other,  and  one  of  them  said,  "  He  's  a 
bright  boy,  but  I  can't  say  he  's  handsome."  "  This  is  their  spare- 
room,  these  are  Governor  and  Mrs.  Tones's  portraits,  the  carpet  is  a 
good  deal  faded,  ain't  it  ?  but  the  sheets,  I  see,  are  all  linen.  Look 
at  that  horrid  picture  behind  the  pier-glass  !  It  is  positively  indecent. 
I  suppose  they  put  it  in  here  out  of  the  way  of  the  children."  "  We 
shall  have  an  elegant  supper,  because  they  know  all  about  what 
good  eating  is  in  this  house.  Mr.  Auton  is  a  perfect  epicure,  you 
know !  "  "  They  allow  the  children  to  eat  everything."  "  Come  ! 
let 's  go  down."  "  I  'm  ready  !  "  "  Does  my  petticoat  show  ?  " 

These  two  old  ladies,  of  course,  had  no  idea  that  I  had  understood 
every  bit  of  their  conversation,  and  had  detailed  it,  word  for  word, 
within  five  minutes  afterwards,  to  the  little  inquisitive  ears  in  the 
nursery.  Then  I  commenced  my  racing  again  ;  first  into  the  third 
story,  where  my  brothers  were  dressing,  then  down  again  to  the 
drawing-room,  sliding  on  the  banisters  half  the  way  on  my  new 
jacket,  and  scraping  the  varnish  with  my  brass  buttons  the  whole 
length,  besides  losing  one  of  my  "  pumps  "  in  the  descent. 

I  watched  my  opportunity,  and  when  nobody  observed  I  stole 
into  the  darkened  supper-room  again  to  sniff  the  condiments  I  was 


54  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

not  allowed  to  eat.  What  delicious  odors  were  wafted  into  my  nos- 
trils as  I  entered  there  !  The  first  sniff  revealed  a  fragrant  melange 
of  calf's-foot  jelly,  and  joggly  blanc-mange.  Then  a  creamy,  winey, 
fruity  fragrance  was  given  off  from  the  tall  glass  pyramid  of  whips 
and  soft  custards,  first  a  whip,  then  a  custard,  then  a  whip,  then  a 
custard,  interspersed  with  Malaga  grapes  and  sparkling  jelly.  Fat 
raisins  and  blanched  almonds  lay  intermingled  in  delightful  abun- 
dance, while  mountains  of  "  hearts  and  rounds  "  (each  with  its  slice 
of  citron,  and  of  my  mother's  own  make)  were  piled  on  the  silver 
cake-baskets  at  the  corners.  The  heavy  decanters  rested  in  their 
silver  holders.  The  ponderous  cut-glass  bowl  held  aloft  its  precious 
burden  of  salad,  while  vacant  places  at  either  end  of  the  table  re- 
mained for  the  oysters  and  terrapin.  Wine-glasses  were  piled  to- 
gether in  silver  baskets.  Forks  and  spoons  lay  huddled  in  delicious 
profusion  on  every  hand,  while  antique  salvers  and  quaint  little 
basins  held  the  confectionery  we  called  "  sentiments,"  and  the 
"short"  biscuits. 

As  I  stood  there  musing,  I  could  but  think  how  few  the  fleeting 
moments  would  be  before  that  mountain  of  lolly -pops  and  joy 
would  be  gone  forever.  Those  fleecy  whips  guzzled  by  strangers, 
and  the  "  hearts  and  rounds  "  (deprived  of  their  citron)  all  wasted 
and  broken.  I  stole  just  one  prune,  and  put  the  tip  of  my  finger 
into  the  "  floating  island  "  to  see  how  it  tasted,  and  then  hurriedly 
closing  the  door  commenced  again  the  "  grand  rounds "  of  the 
rooms. 

On  such  great  occasions  the  children  were  sent  to  bed  before  sup- 
per was  served,  with  the  promise  of  their  plate  of  "  good  things  " 
the  next  morning. 

These  were  brought  to  us  before  we  quitted  the  warm  blankets  of 


THE  MIDDLE   CHAMBER. 


55 


the  ark  and  the  trundle-bed.  In  the  middle  of  the  plate  usually 
stood  a  tall  whip,  the  bubbles  of  which,  weary  of  standing  up,  had 
quietly  collapsed  into  a  dried  creamy  film.  About  the  whip  were 
grouped  a  yellow  soft  custard,  a  piece  of  trembling  blanc-mange, 
specked  with  little  particles  of  almond  shells  which  lay  in  the  im- 
mediate vicinity,  one  five-fingered  piece  of  preserved  ginger,  the 
syrup  of  which  had  run  under  the  bottom  of  the  whip-glass  and 
stuck  the  same  to  the  plate. 
A  heap  of  raisins,  two  figs, 
one  "heart  and  round,"  one 
glass  of  calf 's-foot  jelly,  three 
or  four  "sentiments,"  with 
"tells"  rolled  up  in  them, and 
four  prunes. 

The  prospect  of  these  "good 
things"  made  us  hail  with  de- 
light every  one  of  Mother 
Auton's  parties.  Once,  on  a 
cold  December  night  when  the 
thermometer  was  at  zero,  and 
the  carriage-wheels  creaked  on  the  snow,  occurred  quite  an  exciting 
event.  The  back  drawing-room  fire-place  was  piled  up  with  logs  to 
multiply  the  heat.  There  was  neither  gas  nor  furnace  in  those 
days,  and  people  had  to  rely  upon  hickory  wood  and  wax  candles 
for  bodily  comfort.  The  great  halls  of  houses  were  "  cold  as  Green- 
land." Everybody's  back  was  "  goose-flesh,"  while  everybody's  face 
was  red-hot.  That  night  in  particular  the  wood  was  piled  up,  and 
its  yellow  glare  shot  out  into  every  portion  of  the  drawing-room. 
I  remember  among  the  company  a  beautiful  Southern  lady  who 


56 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


wore  a  crimson  velvet  gown  trimmed  with  white  lace,  and  owned 
lots  of  darkies.  Suddenly  there  was  a  cry  of  "  fire  !  "  The  wood- 
work in  the  middle  chamber,  just  above  us,  had  ignited  from  the 
heat  of  the  chimney  below.  There  was  an  immediate  commotion 
among  the  fair  dames  and  lordly  cavaliers,  who  rushed  up  the  front 
stairway  in  order  to  save  the  ladies'  wraps,  —  their  green  silk  calashes, 
and  ungainly  "  india-rubbers,"  their  long  yarn  stockings  to  draw 
over  the  silk  ones,  and  their  satin- wadded  pelisses,  —  which  were  piled 
up  in  elegant  confusion  on  the  middle  chamber  bed.  There  was 

only  a  voluntary  fire  department  in 
those  days.  Every  boy's  father  was 
either  a  "  fire-ward  "  or  a  captain  in 
the  bucket-brigade  ;  so  when  the 
alarm  was  sounded  the  old  leathern 
buckets  which  hung  in  the  "  glass- 
house "  were  snatched  from  their 
fastenings  and  brought  into  imme- 
diate requisition. 

Beautiful  women,  with  jeweled  fin- 
gers and  dresses  tucked  back,  stood 
on  the  front  stairs  passing  buckets, 
while  a  band  of  "  swells "  in  white 
kids  (white  kids  were  then  fashionable)  worked  the  kitchen-pump, 
and  slopped  the  water  over  the  brussels  carpets.  It  was  a  pictur- 
esque and  lively  scene  for  some  time. 

Happily  the  conflagration  was  arrested,  and  everybody  enjoyed 
the  hot  supper  which  followed  this  excitement  all  the  more.  There 
was  no  need  that  year  for  the  services  of  the  little  woolly-headed 
chimney-sweep,  who  so  regularly  shinned  up  the  big-throated  flues 


THE  MIDDLE  CHAMBER. 


57 


to  scrape  down  their  sooty  sides,  and  his  melodious  carol  was  piped 
in  the  crisp  morning  air  from  the  topmost  stone  of  our  neighbor's 
smoke-stack. 

T.  Auton  owned  a  white 
"  Cade  "  lamb.  This  animal 
wore  a  red  morocco  collar, 
and  followed  its  master  about 
the  streets. 

"  Everywhere  T.  Auton  went 
The  lamb  was  sure  to  go." 

It  became,  however,  a  great 
nuisance.  Its  nose  was  every- 
where but  in  its  proper  place, 
no  marble  mantel-piece,  nor 
mahogany  bedstead,  were 
too  high  for  it  to  scale ;  in- 
deed, it  seemed  to  choose 
these  delicate  pieces  of  furniture  for  its  especial  landing-places.  Its 
idiotic  "  baa  "  was  heard  everywhere,  and  its  hot,  woolly  presence 
was  quite  too  much  on  long  summer  days. 

Besides  the  lamb,  T.  Auton  had  a  poodle.  "  Carlo  "  had  no  tail, 
but  nature  made  up  the  deficiency  to  him  by  his  unusual  sagacity, 
and  the  pity  he  excited  among  men  on  account  of  this  deprivation. 
His  eyes  were  red,  as  if  from  weeping.  He  sat  down  before  every 
new-comer,  placed  his  paw  in  his  lap,  and  looked  up  to  him  with  his 
red  eyes,  as  if  to  invoke  his  pity.  "  Carlo  has  no  tail,"  he  seemed 
to  say,  "  He  can  only  wriggle  the  end  of  his  back-bone  when  he 
feels  happy,  only  that  and  nothing  more." 

This  call  for  sympathy  affected  everybody,  and  all  the  children 


58 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


in  particular  were  his  firm  friends.  So  Carlo,  or,  as  Rosannah  the 
cook  called  him,  Carla,  and  the  lamb,  and  T.  Auton,  and  the  rock- 
ing-horse on  the  piazza  were  four  inseparables. 


The  lamb  would  "  baa,"  and  Carla  would  bark,  and  T.  Auton  would 
scamper  round  the  yard  playing  horse,  and  switching  his  im- 
promptu tail  (made  out  of  green  lily-stalks,  or  of  his  own  pocket- 
handkerchief),  while  the  old  rocking-horse  grinned,  and  stared  at 

his  three  friends  with  his 
glass  eye  from  off  the  pi- 
azza. On  one  of  these 
party  occasions  above  al- 
luded to,  the  supper-table 
was  elaborately  set.  The 
window  -  shutters  in  the 
banqueting  hall  were 
closed.  All  things  were 
ready  for  serving  the  feast. 
The  best  china  and  the  cut- 
glass  dishes  stood  in  re- 
spectable positions  amidst 
the  family  silver.  Rosannah  the  cook  had  carefully  brought  in  the 
joggling  jelly  and  the  blubbering  "  floating  island."  Our  mother 


THE  MIDDLE   CHAMBER. 


59 


had  surveyed  the  scene  and  pronounced  it  one  of  her  very  best 
"  set  tables/'  when,  Baa !  baa !  and  in  rushed  the  lamb,  leaped  on 
the  table,  galloped  around  among  the  soft  custards,  and  the  pre- 
served ginger,  poked  his  nose  into 
the  jelly,  paused  to  browse  on  the 
chicken-salad,  and  sniffed  at  the 
"  hearts  and  rounds."  Then  he 
stooped  and  baa'd  again,  as  if  to 
say  :  "  There  is  some  mistake  about 
this.  Evidently  this  is  not  the 
table-land  for  me  to  nibble."  All 
this  time  Mother  Auton  and  black 
Rosannah  stood  aghast.  The  old 
cook  opened  her  eyes  and  hardly 
dared  to  breathe,  while  Mother  Auton 
shut  hers,  and  hardly  dared  to  stop 
breathing ;  each  expecting  to  hear  the 
fatal  crash,  for  should  that  Nankin 
bowl,  brought  from  China  in  1812,  be 
broken,  or  that  great  cut-glass  dish 
which  Aunt  Cutler  had  given  to 
Grandmother  Dunn,  be  shattered  by  that  "horrid  sheep,"  they 
never  could  be  replaced.  Meanwhile  the  "  precious  lamb  "  picked 
his  way  among  wine-glasses  and  English  walnuts,  and  beat  a  hasty 
retreat  without  oversetting  a  salt-cellar  or  disturbing  a  cracker. 

This  escapade,  however,  settled  his  "  hash,"  for  not  many  days 
afterwards  the  red  collar  was  taken  off  his  neck,  and  his  neck  was 
taken  off  his  body,  and  his  body  was  taken  off  the  premises.  So 
the  Cade  lamb  was  no  more. 


CHAPTER   SEVENTH. 


WORK  AND   PLAY. 

LOVE  for  drawing  was  a  marked  charac- 
teristic among  the  Auton  boys.  Deb' rah 
used  to  say  that  we  got  it  from  our  "  fa- 
ther's side,"  whatever  that  expression  might 
mean  ;  we  stimulated  it  by  constant  exer- 
cise, so  that  it  became  a  source  of  intense 
enjoyment.  A  habit  of  observation  re- 
sulted in  great  facility  of  expression,  which 
converted  Auton  nursery  into  an  infant 
drawing-school.  The  delineation  of  fig- 
ures was  our  especial  hobby,  so  that  when- 
ever a  new  drawing-book  came  into  our 
possession  we  immediately  set  to  work  on  some  favorite  beast,  gen- 
erally a  horse.  We  drew  his  ears  first  because  this  gave  us  time  to 
decide,  as  we  proceeded,  whether  he  should  be  running  away  or 
only  in  the  stable.  A  favorite  way  we  had  was  to  sit  in  little  chairs, 
all  in  a  row,  with  our  slates  on  our  knees,  and  see  who  could  draw 
the  best  lion  or  the  fastest  trotter.  These  sketches,  when  com- 
pleted, were  submitted  to  our  older  brothers  for  judgment.  Some- 
times Father  Auton  would  visit  the  nursery,  and  with  his  great 
thumb  rub  out  the  forelegs  of  our  favorite  horse,  telling  us  that 
we  "never  saw  a  leg  crooked-up  in  that  way;  it  was  all  wrong, 


WORK  AND  PLAY. 


61 


and  we  must  try  again."     So  away  we 

went  to  work  once  more,  and  with  better 

results. 

In  these  friendly,  bouts  we  discovered 

the  secret  of  making  a  horse  look  as  if 

he  were  actually  moving  along  the  road. 

We  found  that  motion  could  not  be  in- 
dicated unless  all  the  legs  of  the  animal 

were  off  the  ground  at  once,  and  that 

the  moment  any  part  of   him   touched 

the    earth   this   idea    of   motion  ceased. 

We  tried  in  all  sorts  of  ways  to  prove 

this.     We  got  down  upon  our  hands  and 

knees    and   trotted    about   the   nursery 

floor.     We  sat  at  the  window  listening 

to  the  sound  of  a  horse  trotting  on  the 

cobble-stones.     We  watched  the  animals  I 

in  every  possible  position  as  they  sped 

by  us,  to  detect  some  point  of  time  when  all  four  legs  were  off  the 

ground  at  once. 
Af  t e  r  many 
weary  watchings 
we  settled  the 
question  in  the 
affirmative,  so 
that  Auton  nurs- 
ery became  the 

last  court  of  appeal  on  all  trotting  questions. 

This  practice  of  observation  was  valuable  to  us  in  a  variety  of 


62 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


ways.  For  instance,  in  order  to  catch  the  correct  movement  of  a 
tiger  dispatching  his  victim,  Deb'rah  would  allow  us  to  take  our 
beefsteak  and  our  cutlets  out  of  our  plates  down  on  the  nursery- 
floor.  Here,  crouching  over  our  imaginary  hunter  or  expiring  buf- 
falo between  our  paws,  we  tore  off  great  pieces  of  his  flesh  from 
the  bone,  and,  raising  aloft  our  defiant  but  greasy  visages,  swal- 
lowed the  morsel  without  mastication. 


In  this  way  we  caught  what  we  called  the  "  feel  "  of  the  tiger, 
and  could  thus  impart  to  our  representation  of  him  a  greater 
amount  of  snarl  and  ferocity.  Then,  again,  in  the  same  manner, 
by  constant  practice  we  could  imitate  the  proud  walk  of  a  rooster 
among  the  hens.  We  scratched  up  imaginary  Easter-worms,  we 
cocked  our  heads  from  side  to  side,  as  if  our  eyes  were  on  our  tem- 
ples. We  flapped  our  arms  and  crew  from  the  backs  of  chairs  and 
imaginary  hen-coops,  and  pecked  at  fancied  pullets  that  presumed 
to  come  too  near  our  harem.  Thus  we  imbibed  something  of  that 
"  inner  consciousness  "  of  an  ordinary  red  rooster,  which  enabled 


WORK  AND  PLAY.  63 

us  to  draw  him  out  on  the  slate  so  vividly  that  one  could  almost 
hear  him  crow.  The  natural  result  of  this  artistic  diathesis  were 
moving  dioramas,  stuffed  elephants,  living  tableaux  and  private 
theatricals.  On  the  evenings  of  such  exhibitions,  our  sisters  were 
stationed  at  the  confectionery  table,  where  diminutive  sticks  of 
candy  were  sold  for  a  cent  apiece  to  our  long-suffering  audience, 
who  sat  for  our  sakes  on  the  hardest  kind  of  boards  in  Egyptian 
darkness  for  two  mortal  hours.  The  fund  realized  from  this  source 
was  expended  in  blue  cambric  and  paste-board  for  the  Diorama. 

F.  Auton  carved  with  his  jack-knife  the  little  wooden  automata 
which  figured  in  the  different  scenes.  Bill  Paine  was  the  magician 
who  appeared  in  the  interludes  and  swallowed  fire,  while  H.  Auton 
manipulated  the  strings  which  set  in  motion  the  dioramic  world- 
One  of  our  scenes  represented  a  cobbler's  shop.  The  curtain  rose. 
The  shoemaker  sat  at  his  bench  pegging  his  shoe.  A  knock  was 
heard  at  the  door.  The  old  fellow  raised  his  head  and  asked  the 
stranger  to  walk  in.  The  door  opened,  a  well-dressed  individual 
entered  who  asked  to  have  his  shoe  mended.  Up  went  his  leg  to 
exhibit  the  rent.  The  cobbler  inspected  it,  and  said  he  would  patch 
it  the  next  day.  Down  went  the  leg.  Right  about  went  the 
stranger.  The  door  flew  open  and  he  disappeared,  whereupon  the 
cobbler  dropped  his  head  and  commenced  pegging  away  again  at 
his  shoe,  and  the  scene  ended  amid  the  plaudits  of  the  audience 
hidden  in  the  Cimmerian  darkness  above  alluded  to.  Afterwards 
came  a  tiger-scene  in  South  Africa,  and  a  blacksmith  shop  on  the 
road  to  Pomfret,  and  a  pasteboard  naval  battle  in  the  War  of  1812 ; 
and  enough  more  wonderful  things  fully  worth  the  price  of  admis- 
sion, which  was  five  cents.  We  used  to  print  and  sell  the  tickets 
for  these  dioramas  weeks  before  we  had  done  the  first  thing  to  the 


64 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


L 


exhibition  itself.  The  advantage  of  this  arrangement  was  that  quite 
often  the  affair  never  came  off,  and  yet  the  buyers  of  our  tickets 
scarcely  ever  consented  to  take  back  their  cash.  This  was  a  mean 
trick  of  ours  to  make  money,  but  the  idea  must  have  been  put  into 
our  heads  by  those  strange  boys  who  came  into  our  yard  and  were 
forever  begging  to  "  belong."  This  word,  translated,  meant  to 
become  one  of  the  proprietors  of  the  company,  having  a  right 

to  a  full  share  in  the  profits  without 
doing  any  of  the  work.  It  was  a 
wonderful  sight  to  creep  under  the 
gay  drapery  which  concealed  the  ma- 
chinery of  our  exhibition,  and  view 
the  spot  where  H.  Auton  pulled  that 
wilderness  of  strings  which  set  in 
motion  the  little  world  above  him. 
One  small  smoky  lamp  from  the 
kitchen  stood  in  the  corner  and  shed 
a  flickering  light  around.  A  tangled 
web  of  threads  with  labels  attached 
to  the  ends  hung  from  little  holes 
over  his  head.  One  string  went  to  the  old  cobbler's  arm,  another 
lifted  the  stranger's  leg.  This  one  made  the  Bengal  tiger  spring 
at  the  native,  and  that  pulled  down  the  main-mast  of  the  Guer- 
riere,  shot  away  by  the  brave  boys  in  the  Constitution  ;  and  so 
on,  through  all  the  scenes.  H.  Auton  sat  on  a  little  cricket  with 
his  legs  crossed  and  his  head  bent  back,  studying  the  forest  of 
threads  above  him.  Great  drops  of  perspiration  stood  on  his  upper 
lip  and  dropped  off  his  chin.  He  breathed  an  atmosphere  which 
would  have  suffocated  anybody  but  a  boy  or  an  Esquimaux,  and 


WORK  AND  PLAY.  65 

he  emerged  from  his  lair  after  each  performance  parboiled,  but 
happy.  Some  of  these  dioramas  ended  in  our  foreign  proprietors 
getting  suddenly  mad  and  leaving  the  yard  en  masse.  Once  in  a 
while  also  AT  Young  and  Nic'  Peters  (those  naughty  Meeker  Street 
boys  !)  would  blow  out  the  only  light  at  the  confectionery  table,  and 
decamp  with  all  the  candy  and  the  pasteboard  money.  These  little 
contretemps,  however,  were  neither  anticipated  nor  feared  by  us 
younger  ones,  as  we  sat,  with  eyes  like  saucers,  in  exquisite  expect- 
ancy, watching  for  the  green  curtain  to  raise  its  mysterious  front. 

5 


CHAPTER   EIGHTH. 


/ 


OUR  MOTHER  AUTON. 

F  a  boy  expects  to  enter  this  world  at  all,  he 
has  got  to  have  some  kind  of  a  mother,  but 
then  there  were  only  seven  boys  who  had 
my  mother  for  their  mother.  One  of  the 
few  things  left  to  me,  nowadays,  which 
gives  me  unalloyed  satisfaction,  is  the  fact 
that  I  had  my  mother  for  a  mother.  If  I 
had  some  other  boy's  mother,  knowing  the 
good  things  that  I  do  about  my  own  mother, 
I  shouldn't  have  been  contented.  Some- 
how she  seemed  different  from  Ed  Gould's 
mother,  for  instance  (the  boy  who  bit  the 
caterpillar  in  two),  and  yet,  I  presume,  in 
many  respects,  she  was  much  the  same  as 
the  ordinary  run  of  mothers.  We  boys  al- 


ways knew  what  Mother  Auton  would  do  on  certain  occasions. 
There  was  no  cheating  about  her.  When  she  said,  "I'll  see,"  we 
knew  just  as  well  that  we  should  have  what  we  were  begging  her 
for,  as  if  she  had  actually  said,  "  Yes,  my  dear,  you  may  have  it." 
When  we  had  fever  turns,  the  touch  of  her  cool,  soft  hands  on  our 
brows  was  better  than  any  spirits  of  nitre  that  Dr.  Possett  gave  us 
to  bring  down  the  pulse ;  and  when  we  snuggled  up  to  her  motherly 


OUR  MOTHER   AUTON.  67 

bosom,  we»  slept  more  sweetly  than  on  any  other  pillow.  In  later 
life,  how  puzzled  grandfather  would  have  been,  to  span  her  portly 
waist  with  his  two  hands,  as  he  used  to  do  so  easily  when  she  was 
but  eighteen!  and  to  look  into  her  sweet  blue  eyes  no  one  would 
detect  the  hidden  "  snap  "  which  lay  there,  and  which  manifested 
itself,  too,  when  we  tried  her  patience  beyond  a  certain  limit. 
When  she  spanked  us  she  lost  her  breath,  the  blows  were  so  short 
and  rapid,  and,  dear  soul !  the  punishment  injured  her  more  than  it 
did  us,  for  we  went  off  to  our  corners  saying,  "  Did  n't  hurt  us 
any  !  "  while  she  was  pale  with  excitement  and  exhausted  from  her 
encounter.  Old-fashioned  and  dignified,  delightful  in  conversation, 
and  loved  by  everybody,  elegant  in  her  manners  and  an  angel  in 
sickness,  my  mother  Anton  was  a  "  jewel  and  a  love." 

Our  grandfather  was  a  prominent  Federalist  in  the  State,  and  after 
the  War  of  1812  became  its  Governor,  and  his  daughter  was  nat- 
urally an  important  factor  in  the  gubernatorial  mansion.  The  ha- 
bitual reception  and  entertainment  of  strangers  beget  a  certain  ease 
and  self-possession  which  few  other  things  impart,  and  I  well  re- 
member the  grace  with  which  she  entered  the  drawing-room  and 
courtesied  to  some  person  who  had  called  upon  her.  It  was  that 
quaint,  old-fashioned  courtesy,  half  coy,  half  formal,  which  survived 
the  Revolutionary  period,  and  charmed  everybody.  The  children 
thought  her  a  grand  performer  on  the  piano.  She  was  a  favorite 
pupil  of  old  blind  Oliver  Shaw,  the  music  teacher,  and  when  she  sat 
at  the  instrument  and  commenced  the  "  Battle  of  Prague  "  for  us, 
we  stood  about  the  piano  with  heads  just  tall  enough  to  view  the 
key-board,  and  eyes  and  ears  wide  open  with  delight.  As  her  fin- 
gers undulated  up  and  down  the  scales  we  could  see  the  advance  of 
the  troops,  and  hear  the  rattling  of  the  musketry,  the  cries  of  the 


68 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


wounded,  and  the  groans  of  the  dying,  almost  as  distinctly  as  if  the 
actual  battle  was  before  us.  When  the  performance  ended  it  left  us 
in  a  cold  perspiration. 

The  "Infant  Boys  of  Switzerland"  was  another  favorite  piece, 
and  also,  "  Come  rest  in  this  bosom,  my  own  stricken  deer ! "  The 
cross-hand  movement  in  this  last  composition  we  considered  the 
most  wonderful  of  all.  That  she  should  never  miss  striking  the 
correct  note  with  the  middle  finger  of  one  hand  stretched  across  the 
other  was  the  marvel  of  marvels.  Whenever  afterwards  we  prac- 
ticed the  piano  on  the 
nursery  tables  and  baby- 
chairs,  this  cross-hand 
manoeuvre  was  the  ob- 
ject we  all  tried  to  attain. 
Mother  Auton  was  a 
"  Lady  Bountiful "  in  the 
old-fashioned  sense.  She 
lived  at  an  epoch  when 
hospitality  was  a  Christian  virtue,  and  a  stranger  became  a  member 
in  a  man's  own  household.  "  Full  measure,  heaped  up  and  running 
over,"  was  the  invisible  legend  engraven  over  her  blessed  heart,  and 
she  turned  her  face  from  no  poor  man  at  the  door.  All  the  col- 
ored people  squatted  to  her  in  the  street,  and  "  Minty  Weeks,"  Zip 

Brin turn's  wife,  Vi'lette  Jackson  and  "Aunty ,"  in  mob  caps, 

checked  aprons,  silver-bowed  spectacles,  and  big  india-rubber  shoes, 
would  wend  their  noiseless  way  through  the  upper  entry  to  her 
chamber-door,  to  pour  into  her  patient  and  sympathetic  ear  their 
worn-out  tales  of  "  rheumatiz  "  and  "  gone  feelin's."  These  groan- 
ings  were  sure  to  be  relieved  by  potions  of  "  spirits,"  and  remnants 


OUR  MOTHER  AUTON. 


69 


of  old  flannel,  dealt   out  to   them   from   that  inexhaustible  store, 
always  on  hand,  somewhere  in  the  "  baby-house  "  closet. 

There  were  a  few  occasions  when  Mother  Auton's  disapprobation 
was  strangely  excited.  She  called  women  who 
were  guilty  of  anything  derogatory  to  their  sex 
"  impudent  hussies  "  and  "  saucy  trollops ;"  and 
old  men  who  paraded  about  the  hot  streets  on 
Fourth  of  Julys  with  masonic  aprons,  and  com- 
passes on  their  stomachs,  "  stupid  asses."  She 
considered  Dr.  McGee  and  Dr.  Eben  Cowen  the 
greatest  physicians  in  the  world.  She  hung  lit- 
tle bags  of  camphor  about  the  children's  necks  in 
the  time  of  "  the  cholera."  She  "  cleaned  house  " 
in  the  first  week  of  May,  rain  or  shine,  and  took 
such  pride  in  her  "  boys "  that  it  would  have 
"fairly  killed  her"  had  any  one  of  them  gone 
amiss.  Now  all  these  qualities  made  her  an  ideal 
maternal  relative. 

Her  nose  was  large,  which  we  did  n't  object  to,  and  her  stature 
was  tall,  which  just  balanced  her  nose.  She  wore  a  cap,  the  strings 
of  which  were  tied  just  between  the  chin  she  was  born  with  and 
the  other  one  she  acquired  with  age.  This  made  it  very  convenient 
for  the  strings,  which  never  budged  from  their  position.  We  used 
to  like  to  have  her  come  into  the  nursery  and  sing  to  us  her  fa- 
vorite lullaby,  — 

"  Rumpty  Toodle  —  he  was  there  ! 
Tittery,  Nan,  and  Tarey  O.,"  etc. 

And  when  she  reached  the  last  line  of  the  poem  — 

"  Fall  down,  Daddy  O  —  O  —  O  —  O," 


70 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


which  was  repeated  on  several  soft  keys,  and  in  the  minuendo  scale, 

we  all  slipped  off  to  the  land  of  dreams  with  smiles  on  our  lips, 

and  faces  cuddled  up  under  her  dear  double  chin. 

It  was  our  delight  to  pick  the  first  raspberries  of  the  season  which 

grew  in  the  "  upper  garden,"  and  bring  them  to  her  in  little  sau- 
cers. We  all  gathered  about  her 
knee  to  watch  her  eat  them.  She 
took  each  one  up  on  the  point  of  a 
pin  in  the  daintiest  manner,  dipped 
it  into  the  sugar  we  brought  her, 
and  dropped  it  into  her  mouth  like 
a  lady  that  she  was.  For  our  sakes 
(who  had  picked  them  for  her)  she 
ate  the  bad  and  the  good  ones, — 
those  that  tasted  of  rose-bugs,  and 
those  that  were  covered  with  white- 
wash off  the  trellis.  Should  a  sin- 
gle berry,  however  inferior,  escape 
her  observation,  we  stood  ready  to 
remind  her  of  it.  "There  !  mother, 
you  have  n't  eaten  that  little  green 
one  !  "  Sometimes  she  really  could 

not   eat   such   poor-looking   specimens,  whereupon   we  (who  were 

dying  to  swallow  the  whole  of  them)  cleared  the  little  saucers  in 

the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 

The  age  of  letter-writing  is  past.  The  era  of  Madame  de  Sevigne 
and  Madame  de  Stael  is  buried  beneath  the  rush  of  modern  civ- 
ilization. But  there  was  a  period  when  it  was  the  fashion  to 


OUR  MOTHER  AUTON.  71 

write  letters  and  to  express  one's  self  on  paper  in  cultivated  diction. 
This  was  the  age  of  Chesterfield  and  of  the  "  Tattler."  Men  and 
women  cultivated  conversation  as  an  art,  and  struggled  for  the  mas- 
tery of  expression  at  the  pen's  point. 

Mother  Auton  was  bred  in  that  spirit,  and  matured  under  the 
influence  of  that  past  generation.  Her  ideas  flowed  as  easily  as 
water,  and  her  nimble  pen  posted  them  in  black  and  white  with  as- 
tonishing facility,  even  after  eighty  winters  had  passed  over  her 
head. 

What  a  correspondent  she  was,  to  be  sure !  "  Wait  for  Mother 
Auton' s  letters,  if  you  want  to  hear  the  truth  about  it !  "  was  the 
common  shibboleth  in  the  family.  Her  epistles  were  comforts  to 
the  homesick  school-boy,  the  delight  of  her  children  in  foreign 
lands,  and  became  valuable  transcripts  of  the  current  history  of 
the  whole  Auton  tribe.  For  forty  years  she  wrote  a  weekly  bulle- 
tin to  her  absent  ones,  bringing  to  their  anxious  hearts  fresh  photo- 
graphs of  home. 

Mother  Auton  never  would  sit  at  a  desk.  Neither  "  secretary  " 
nor  "  davenport "  suited  her  purpose.  The  little  gifts  presented 
to  her  from  time  to  time,  and  admirably  adapted  to  write  at,  were 
always  gratefully  accepted,  but  never  used.  She  took  her  writing 
materials  on  her  broad,  motherly  lap,  pushed  her  cap-strings  from  her 
face,  adjusted  her  gold  spectacles  over  her  ample  nose,  dipped  her 
pen  daintily  in  the  ink  (just  enough  to  fill  it  without  blotting),  and 
away  it  ran  so  merrily  and  easily  over  the  paper  that  she  would  be 
on  her  fourth  page  before  we  children,  who  were  seated  around  her, 
had  half  gotten  through  sucking  our  oranges.  People  write  letters 
now,  lots  of  them,  heaps  of  them  ;  but  I  very  much  doubt  whether 
they  contain  one  half  the  valuable  news,  —  the  harmless  gossip,  the 
genial  spirit,  which  flowed  so  readily  from  Mother  Auton's  pen. 


72 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


There  she  sat  in  her  chair  every  Sunday  morning  for  over  forty 
years,  writing  the  weekly  epistle,  with  bended  head  and  benign 
expression,  while  the  wood  fire  hissed  and  sputtered,  and  the  old 
canary  sang  in  the  sun-light. 


CHAPTER   NINTH. 


AUTON  PECULIARITIES. 

LL  children  are  queer,  and  why  should  n't  they 
be?  It  is  no  more  than  natural  that  such 
little  pieces  of  animated  putty  should  exhibit 
some  extraordinary  peculiarities  before  they 
become  acquainted  with  their  new  existence. 
Just  peep  at  a  fresh-born  baby  and  notice 
what  disproportion  there  is  between  brain 
and  body !  Infants  are  not  much  more  than 
tadpoles  with  possibilities.  A  soft  rounded  mass  of  brain-matter 
with  a  disproportionate  appendage  of  soft  bones.  Sometimes  the 
nutriment  given  these  embryotic  people  stimulates  the  brain  at  the 
expense  of  the  bones,  and  sometimes  contrariwise.  From  this  in- 
equality of  nutrition  spring  abnormal  results.  One  small  specimen 
is  all  head,  while  another  is  little  else  than  stomach.  And  this 
unequal  development  often  continues  with  their  growth. 

The  Auton  children  were  no  exceptions  to  this  state  of  things. 
We  had  our  peculiarities  like  other  folks,  and  like  all  other  families 
we  had  a  "  young  one  "  in  ours  who  articulated  sentences  long 
before  it  ought  to  have  done  so.  It  bawled  out  "  That 's  my  baby 
—  give  me  a  cracker !  "  at  so  tender  an  age  that  Mother  Auton 
screamed  for  Dr.  Possett  at  once  ;  but  Father  Auton  pooh-poohed 
the  idea,  saying  that  "  it  was  all  right,  it  was  only  a  girl." 


74  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

Then  we  always  carried  our  stockings  to  bed  and  put  them  be- 
hind our  pillows,  and  that  was  rather  an  odd  habit.  Besides  that, 
we  used  to  say  our  prayers  on  the  front  stairs  in  the  middle  of  the 
day,  so  as  to  save  time  at  night  when  we  were  sure  to  be  so  sleepy. 
This  was  a  business-like  habit,  but  a  very  naughty  one.  We  all 
had  what  Dr.  Possett  called  "  chronic  exaltation  of  the  imagina- 
tion," and  saw  dragons'  heads  and  demons'  faces  in  the  air  after  we 
were  abed.  We  discovered  all  kinds  of  animals  in  the  yellow  grain 
of  the  Egyptian  marble  mantel-piece  in  the  green  room,  and  in  the 
dying  embers  of  the  fire.  We  lay  on  the  floor  pressing  in  our  eye- 
balls with  our  fists,  in  order  to  enjoy  afterwards  those  gorgeous  and 
changing  figures  produced  on  the  retina  by  the  pressure.  We  had 
also  an  inconvenient  way  of  suddenly  waking  from  sleep  in  the 
greatest  trepidation,  and  screaming  for  Deb'rah.  This  succeeded 
in  arousing  the  house,  but  to  our  great  cost ;  because  our  exasper- 
ated parents,  seeing  that  we  were  screaming  for  nothing,  made  us 
finish  our  hullaballoo  by  screaming  for  something,  —  this  Mother 
Auton  administered  to  us  in  a  very  rapid  but  effective  manner. 

When  T.  Auton  was  a  little  boy  he  was  so  frightened  because 
Charley  Arnold  threatened  to  put  him  in  a  pin-hole  in  the  fence 
that  he  did  n't  get  over  it  for  years ;  and  the  tradition  is  that  F. 
Auton  was  never  able  to  go  church  because  when  the  minister  said 
"  Kingdom  come  "  it  made  him  so  terribly  ill  that  he  was  obliged 
to  leave  the  pew.  This  same  F.  Auton  was  uncomfortably  affected 
by  circuses,  for  the  moment  the  brass  band  "  struck  up  "  he  left 
the  tent,  saying  that  he  "felt  the  bass-drum  in  his  stomach." 

The  Auton  children  were  in  mortal  fear  of  telling  a  lie,  and  in 
their  circumlocution  to  avoid  a  falsehood  they  generally  contrived 
to  tell  one.  They  used  to  say  "  they  did  n't  know  "  when  they  did 


AUTON  PECULIARITIES. 


75 


know,  and  "  believed  "  this  thing  to  be  so  when  they  knew  all  about 
it.  The  whole  of  Auton  nursery  expected  inevitably  to  die  before 
morning  unless  each  night  somebody  who  knew  about  such  things 
assured  it  to  the  contrary.  <5ne  evening  T.  Auton  sent  his  younger 
sister  down-stairs  to  settle  this  important  point  for  him,  while  he 
awaited  the  verdict  in  his  night-drawers  on  the  top  step.  The  com- 
pany gathered  in  the  "  green- 
room "  were  startled  by  seeing 
the  door  open,  and  a  little  girl 
in  long  white  night-gown  and 
ruffled  cap  enter.  She  strode 
solemnly  up  to  Mother  Auton 
and  in  serious  tones  said,  "  T. 
Auton  wants  to  know  if  he  will 
live  till  morning."  Everybody 
was  convulsed  with  laughter, 
but  it  was  no  laughing  matter 
to  the  lassie  who  performed 
her  task  with  imperturbable 
gravity,  and  then  marched 
back  again  to  the  shivering  cul- 
prit on  the  front  stairs. 

Children  often  exhibit  a  brilliancy  of  conception  in  the  attainment 
of  their  ends  in  view,  which  would  bring  no  discredit  on  operations 
of  more  importance,  and  by  more  experienced  brains.  The  Auton 
girls  were  forbidden  to  play  with  water  because  it  wetted  their 
aprons  and  sleeves,  and  was  spilt  all  over  the  nursery  floor ;  and 
above  all  it  gave  them  sore  throat.  This  was  one  of  Mother  Au- 
ton's  inexorable  commands.  The  question  with  the  girls  was  how 
to  get  round  the  command  without  disobeying  the  law. 


76 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


Up  in  the  "  baby-house,"  and  among  the  dolls,  "  washing-day  " 
came  about  as  regularly  as  it  did  down  below  in  the  laundry.  The 
girls  said  the  dolls'  "  duds  "  needed  to  go  in  the  tub  and  be  ironed 
every  week,  or  else  "  their  children  "would  look  like  a  family  of 
emigrants." 

Now  A.  Auton  was  a  motherly  girl,  and  "  took "  naturally  to 
babies  and  their  habits,  and  knew  just  the  best  way  of  "  playing 
paper-dolls."  It  seemed  to  her  indispensable  that  her  children's 
dresses  should  be  washed,  yet  how  could  she  do  it  without  water  ? 
So  the  little  girl  sat  down  and  thought  and  thought,  and  after  long 

deliberation  she 
concluded  that 
she  would 
"  chew-out "  the 
weekly  wash, 
piece  by  piece. 
In  that  way  her 
mother  would 
not  be  disobeyed, 
yet  her  doll-chil- 
dren  would  be 
kept  decent.  So 
every  Monday 
morning  while 
Rosannah  was 

washing  in  the  laundry  she  sat  up  at  the  baby-house  window  and 
chewed  and  chewed  her  little  dresses  until  her  tiny  jaws  grew 
weary,  and  her  salivary  glands  refused  to  perform  their  office.  One 
dotted  muslin  tried  her  powers  the  most.  It  took  more  time  and 


AUTON  PECULIARITIES.  77 

more  chew  to  make  that  gown  tidy  than  all  the  rest  of  the  wash. 
I  believe  if  she  had  swallowed  what  her  little  teeth  ground  out  of 
that  dotted  muslin  it  would  have  killed  her,  but  an  open  window 
into  the  yard  provided  a  means  of  escape  from  this  danger.  Dear 
little  mother ! 


CHAPTER  TENTH. 


AUTON   KITCHEN. 

T  the  risk  of  making  a  trite  remark  I  will  ob- 
serve that  the  advent  of  spring  gives  me  de- 
lightful emotions.  The  swelling  buds  cause  a 
corresponding  expansion  of  heart.  The  first 
sight  of  a  robin  tilting  his  tail  and  gushing 
forth  his  flute  note,  stirs  within  me  an  ecstasy. 
It  is  a  delicious  moment  to  the  school-boy 
when  he  can  throw  off  his  overcoat  and  "  com- 
forter," for  the  days  of  sore  throat,  and  salt 
and  vinegar  gargle,  are  numbered.  Animals 
feel  just  like  human  beings  at  this  vernal  pe- 
riod. The  cows  chew  their  cud  on  the  sunny 
side  of  the  barn  with  a  smile  on  their  faces, 
and  draw  in  great  draughts  of  the  balmy  south 
wind  with  half -shut  eyes.  The  hens  and  roosters  pick  up  the  Easter- 
worms  and  cock  their  heads  about  as  if  they  pitied  common  mortals, 
who  couldn't  scratch  up  the  warm,  responsive  earth.  The  doves 
come  forth  from  their  round  holes  and  strut  about  in  the  sunshine, 
while  the  sleek  kittens  commence  to  charm  the  bluebirds,  out  of 
pure  malice.  Every  opening  year  I  renew  my  youth  by  this  deli- 
cious experience.  Men  become  boys  again  when  they  feel  thus. 
The  years  that  have  rolled  between  youth  and  manhood  are  anni- 


AUTON  KITCHEN. 


79 


hilated,  and  for  the  nonce  we  are,  as  we  will  be  in  eternity,  with  the 
notion  of  time  entirely  discounted  and  blotted  out  of  our  existence. 

By  the  recurrence  of  these  sensations,  so  common  to  every  school- 
boy, I  return  again  to  that  youthful  epoch  when  Rosannah  the 
cook  inhabited  Auton  kitchen.  In  bright  bandanna  and  stern  ebony 
countenance  she  stands  before  me,  as  I  used  to  see  her,  arms  akimbo, 
listening  to  the  orders  for  the  day. 

Rosannah  was  cook  in  Auton  House  for  nearly  thirty  years.  She 
wore  one  little  thin  gold  ring  on  the  third 
finger  of  her  well-formed,  long,  left  hand, 
but  we  never  knew  whether  she  was  ever 
married.  I  pity  the  rash  youth  who  linked 
his  fate  to  hers,  because  she  who  thor- 
oughly believed  in  the  old  adage  that  "  too 
many  cooks  spoil  the  broth  "  could  surely 
dispense  with  any  masculine  suggestions  in 
regard  to  the  matrimonial  pottage.  It  is 
safe  to  predict  that  if  Rosannah  ever  was 
a  bride  it  must  have  been  for  a  brief  and  sanguinary  period.  She 
was  what  might  be  termed  a  cross  cook,  but  ah  !  was  n't  she  a  good 
one  though  ?  To  watch  her  manipulate  a  Rhode  Island  turkey 
"  going  round  doing  good  "  in  the  bright  tin-kitchen,  gave  one  an 
appetite  for  dinner.  Once  on  the  skewer  and  before  the  roaring 
wood  fire,  it  was  a  mere  question  of  time  that  separated  you  from  a 
dish  fit  for  the  gods.  With  the  air  of  an  expert  she  opened  the 
roaster  to  inspect  the  savory  process.  Her  dredger  in  one  hand,  and 
long  spoon  in  the  other,  she  "  basted  "  the  blistering  bird  with  the 
flour,  and  poured  the  sputtering  gravy  over  its  magnificent  breast, 
with  all  the  dignity  of  a  queen.  When  the  turkey  was  ready  to 


80 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


be  served  a  fragrant  cloud  enveloped  it  which  penetrated  to  the 
dining-room.  The  great  mountain  of  breast  was  blistered  and 
browned  with  half  an  inch  of  aromatic  dressing.  No  tough,  yellow 
pin-feathered  legs  stuck  up  before  you,  but  lovely,  bulging  drum- 
sticks, dripping  with  gravy,  and  folded  together  in  peaceful  satis- 
faction. Its  liver  and  manly  gizzard  were  huddled  together,  just 
under  the  sides  of  the  home  where  they  had  lived,  and  a  suspicion  of 
onion  and  sweet  marjoram  permeated  the  air  in  the  immediate  vi- 
cinity. 


Those  ideal  roast-turkey  days  took  their  flight  when  the  new- 
fashioned  bakers,  and  ranges,  and  cooking  stoves,  stuck  their  ugly 
faces  into  the  kitchen.  Anthracite  coal  can  never  charm  forth  the 
subtle  qualities  and  evanescent  flavors  which  lurk  within  the  "  sa- 
cred precincts  "  of  this  wonderful  bird.  It  requires  the  magic  heat 


AUTON  KITCHEN.  81 

of  walnut  and  hickory  to  achieve  this  victory.  An  old-fashioned 
tin-kitchen,  unstinted  charcoal,  a  fresh  fore-stick,  with  Rosannah 
the  cook  to  superintend  the  operation,  are  the  conditions  which 
unlock  the  secret.  What  modern  civilization  is  to  the  American 
Indian,  so  a  new-fangled  range  was  to  our  old  cook.  The  two  could 
not  exist  in  company,  so  when  the  range  entered  at  one  door  Ro- 
sannah and  the  yellow-eyed  cat  departed  by  the  other.  And  with 
her  fled  the  iron  crane  and  the  pot-hooks,  the  sooty  horse-shoes  and 
the  Rumford's  Roaster,  the  great  brick  oven  and  the  old  tin-kitchen, 
the  biscuit  baker  and  the  Johnny-cake  board.  A  new  regime  had 
dawned  upon  us,  and  baked  turkey  and  tasteless  meats  usurped  the 
places  of  juicy  birds  and  "  gissam  "  gravy. 

We  children  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  Rosannah  the  cook. 
Like  other  children  our  appetites  were  perennial,  and  we  flocked  to 
her  in  troops  for  provender.  She  never  would  tell  us  what  we  were 
to  have  for  dinner.  The  nearest  she  ever  came  to  it  was,  "  Lare 
overs  for  meddlers."  Whether  this  expression  was  African  for  roast 
turkey  or  beefsteak  we  never  knew.  We  stood  about  her  like  a 
swarm  of  bees,  together  with  all  the  strange  boys  of  the  neighbor- 
hood who  always  came  into  the  kitchen  when  there  was  anything  to 
eat  there.  All  hungry  as  bears,  all  famishing,  all  with  remarkably 
good  digestions.  She  looked  down  from  her  sable  height  upon  the 
white  brood  beneath  her.  The  ponderous  loaf  of  brown  bread 
rested  in  her  left  hand.  With  one  scoop  of  the  knife  in  her  right 
she  spread  the  whole  surface  with  the  yellow  butter,  with  a  single 
cut  the  slice  was  severed  from  the  parent  loaf  and  dealt  out  to  the 
expectant  boy,  with  another  majestic  look  she  repeated  the  opera- 
tion until  the  crowd  was  filled. 

"  Now,  g'long!"  "Out  with  ye  !  "  she  cried,  "Shut  the  doo',"  and 


82  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

the  bread-and-butter  brigade  vanished  from  sight.  Saturday  night 
was  a  busy  one  in  Rosannah's  kitchen,  because  the  Sunday  morn- 
ing's breakfast  was  being  prepared.  This  meal,  on  that  day,  had 
been  the  same  in  Auton  House  for  sixty  years.  Whatever  may  be 
said  concerning  the  indigestibility  of  hot  Indian  pudding  and  baked 
beans,  fish-balls,  and  brown  bread,  it  is  a  fact  that  the  Autons 
thrived  on  this  diet. 

But  in  order  that  these  toothsome  delicacies  should  become  harm- 
less, it  was  quite  necessary  that  they  be  laid  away  in  the  hot  brick 
oven  during  Saturday  night  to  steam  and  simmer  until  the  bells  for 
Sunday-school  commenced  ringing  in  the  morning. 

The  crackling  flames  of  a  dry  wood  fire  licked  and  hugged  the  red 
sloping  sides  of  the  brick  oven  into  a  white  heat.  Rosannah  stood 
ready  to  remove  with  tongs  and  hod  the  larger  embers,  and  with 
the  old  turkey  wing  to  spread  an  even  layer  of  hot  ashes  over  the 
brick  bottom  to  prevent  the  precious  viands  from  burning. 

First,  came  the  Indian  pudding.  This  was  set  on  the  broad  iron 
shovel  and  pushed  to  its  position  in  the  farthest  corner  of  the  oven. 
Then  followed  the  brown  bread  which  took  its  place  on  the  right 
of  its  sweet  relative,  and  last  of  all  the  beans.  A  delicate  slice  of 
choice  pork  just  peeked  over  the  rim  of  the  dish  as  if  to  say,  "  Au 
revoir  mes  amis,"  "  Au  plaisir  !  "  Rosannah  closed  the  oven  with 
the  great  iron  door.  Her  part  of  the  work  was  over.  The  remain- 
der of  it  was  to  be  performed  by  the  mysterious  action  of  those 
subtle  forces  within  the  fiery  chamber. 

I  must  say  a  word  about  Rosannah's  coffee.  I  know  that  the  Ger- 
man beverage  is  very  palatable,  unter  den  linden ;  the  French  va- 
riety is  delicious  after  dinner  at  Trois  freres ;  the  Egyptian  com- 
pound requires  the  aid  of  narghili  and  tarbooshe  to  make  it  tolerable, 


AUTON  KITCHEN.  83 

while  the  English  liquid  is  not  to  be  mentioned.  All  these  are  good 
in  their  way,  but  Rosannah's  coffee  was  perfect  nectar.  She  burnt 
it,  and  ground  it,  and  boiled  it  herself,  and  then  she  settled  it  with 
a  fish-skin  and  egg-shells  in  the  tall  tin  coffee-pot. 

The  fragrance  of  that  "  Old  Government  Java,"  while  it  was 
being  parched,  came  'way  out  into  the  front  entry.  Rosannah 
stirred  the  berries  with  one  particular  burnt  stick,  which  gave  it  a 
certain  mysterious  flavor.  She  always  parched  the  coffee  Saturday 
afternoons,  at  the  gloaming,  and  before  the  lamps  were  lighted. 

Vi'lette  Jackson  usually  sat  by  the  fireside,  smoking  her  short 
pipe,  and  watching  the  operation.  Those  two  weird,  ebony  women, 
in  bright  bandannas  and  solemn  mien,  looked  like  witches  as  they 
stirred  round  the  fragrant  compound  by  the  flickering  fire-light. 

The  big  coffee-pot  was  allowed  to  stand  a  while  on  the  warm 
hearth  to  insure  greater  purity  to  its  contents,  then  Rosannah  held 
the  bright  vessel  aloft,  one  elbow  on  hip,  and  poured  the  dark  aro- 
matic tide  by  graceful  curve  into  the  vasty  depths  of  the  family 
urn.  The  heater  was  next  plunged  into  the  bubbling  caldron,  and 
Jenny  carried  it  to  the  dining-room. 

Rosannah  seldom  smiled. 

Rosannah  seldom  talked. 

Her  business  was  to  cook,  and  she  attended  to  her  business.  On 
washing  days  she  had  a  half  tumbler  of  spirits  to  keep  off  "  rheum- 
atiz."  She  wore  a  wadded  hood  and  "india-rubbers"  when  she  hung 
out  the  clothes  on  Mondays.  She  was  very  superstitious,  and  be- 
lieved that  the  horse-shoes  she  had  hung  on  the  old  crane  kept  off 
the  witches.  To  see  Rosannah  out  of  the  kitchen  and  in  her  best 
bonnet,  you  would  never  recognize  her.  On  the  public  streets  her 
countenance  wore  a  sad  and  depressed  expression.  She  was  out  of 


84 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


her  element  there ;  but  once  in  her  kitchen,  with  a  fresh  bandanna 
about  her  head,  and  she  was  "  monarch  of  all  she  surveyed." 


Father  Auton  being  quite  epicurean  in  his  taste,  Rosannah  the 
cook  and  he  were  naturally  en  rapport.  For  she  knew  just  how 
long  to  cook  his  venison,  and  just  the  extra  pinch  of  spice  to  put 
in  his  calf's-head  soup,  and  just  the  amount  of  brandy  for  his  mince 
pies.  Her  roast  pig  on  Fourth  of  Julys  would  have  delighted 
Charles  Lamb,  and  her  potted-pigeon  gravy  was  the  wonder  of  the 
neighborhood.  When  she  was  complimented  on  her  success  she 
rewarded  her  friends  by  the  grim  apparition  of  a  smile,  which  soon 
blended  again  into  her  ordinary  stoicism. 

It  is  poor  policy  to  moralize  about  cooks,  but  I  must  indulge  in  it 
for  a  moment  now.  There  would  have  been  no  Auton  kitchen  to 
speak  about  if  there  had  been  no  Rosanuah  to  go  into  it,  and  with- 
out a  kitchen  Auton  House  could  not  have  existed  for  a  day,  and 
had  there  been  no  Auton  House  there  would  have  been  no  Auton 
family,  so  it  seems  clear  that  the  whole  autonomy  of  the  Autons 
depended  upon  the  life  of  one  good,  cross  old  black  woman. 

I  pity  cooks.  Their  wages  would  be  cheap,  it  seems  to  me,  were 
they  five,  times  what  they  are.  With  an  old-fashioned  cook  in  a 
family,  the  father  and  mother  agree,  the  children  are  always  healthy 


AUTON  KITCHEN.  85 

and  hungry,  and  one  entertains  his  friends  with  no  jar  or  excite- 
ment. Without  such  an  one  everybody  is  "  at  sea  "  at  once,  and 
the  whole  family  degenerates  into  a  lot  of  quarreling  tramps.  A 
good  cook  is  a  boon  in  disguise,  even  a  bad  one  is  better  than  none. 

In  those  Rosannah  days,  your  cook,  your  minister,  and  your  home 
were  known  quantities ;  nowadays  they  are  all  just  the  other  way. 
Then,  people  were  content  to  remain  at  home  during  the  hottest 
weather,  behind  the  closed  blinds  and  in  cool  retreat,  within  their 
comfortable  chambers ;  now  they  are  frantic  to  sit  on  their  trunks 
killing  mosquitoes,  in  a  closet  at  the  top  of  a  wooden  caravansary, 
at  ten  dollars  per  day,  and  say  they  are  happy.  People  used  to  go 
to  the  "  Springs,"  in  August,  to  drink  the  waters,  and  lived  con- 
tentedly at  home  the  rest  of  the  year.  Nowadays,  on  the  contrary, 
they  do  quite  the  reverse.  • 

Auton  kitchen  ran  on  without  stopping  for  fifty  years.  Good, 
faithful  Rosannah  !  She  has  cooked  her  last  turkey,  she  has  made 
her  last  pie,  and  the  secret  of  her  seasoning  departed  with  her. 
With  slight  paraphrase,  the  dying  words  attributed  to  that  "  tired 
old  woman  "  would  be  applicable  to  her  :  — 

"  Her  last  words  on  earth  were  :    '  Dear  friends,  I  am  going 
Where  washing  ain't  done,  nor  starching  nor  sewing. 
And  everything  there  will  be  just  to  my  wishes, 
For  where  they  don't  eat  there  's  no  washing  of  dishes. 
I  '11  be  where  loud  anthems  will  always  be  ringing, 
But  having  no  voice  I  '11  get  rid  of  the  singing. 
Don't  mourn  for  me  now,  don't  mourn  for  me  never, 
For  I'm  going  to  do  nothing  for  ever  and  ever.'  " 


CHAPTER  ELEVENTH. 

CHRISTMAS   AT  AUTON  HOUSE. 

UEER  as  it  may  seem,  the  Autons  never  hung 
up  their  stockings  at  Christmas.  They  put 
out  their  shoes  instead.  Why  it  was  so  is  a 
question,  but  as  no  Auton  ever  did  it,  no  Au- 
ton  ever  would.  We  regularly  sang,  how- 
ever, Mr.  Moore's  "  Night  before  Christmas," 
and  thought  we  had  fully  complied  with  the 
requirements  of  the  lines :  — 

"  The  stockings  were  hung  by  the  chimney  with  care, 
In  the  hopes  that  St.  Nicholas  soon  would  be  there." 

Possibly  this  departure  from  the  ancient  rule  arose  from  our  cus- 
tom of  receiving  presents  after  breakfast,  and  also  that  our  great, 
great,  great  grandmother  was  a  French  Huguenot,  and  preferred 
the  sabot.  We  only  troubled  Santa  Glaus  in  the  early  morning  for 
a  bundle  of  candy,  and  such  other  knickknacks  as  he  might  feel  in- 
clined to  bestow. 

Our  boots  and  shoes  being  the  chosen  vessels  to  receive  this  early 
freight,  they  were  set  on  the  mahogany  table  in  the  upper  hall,  and 
were  ranged  from  father's  down  to  the  eleventh  Auton's  in  regular 
gradation. 


CHRISTMAS  AT  AUTON  HOUSE. 


87 


Our  big  brother  was  expected  home  by  the  early  boat,  so  that, 
together  with  other  anticipations,  drove  sleep  from  our  pillows. 
From  hour  to  hour  on  the  night  preceding  Christmas  we  raised 


our  uneasy,  tumbled  heads  from  our  couches,  hoping  it  was  light 
enough  to  scream  out,  in  one  word,  "  wishy'rmerry Christmas,"  but 
somehow  the  sun  stuck  down  and  would  n't  "  hurry  up."  But  at 
the  faintest  suspicion  of  dawn  we  thumped  poor  Deb'rah  with  our 
feet  to  go  for  our  shoes.  Oh !  how  dead  with  sleep  that  much- 
abused  nurse  used  to  be,  curled  up  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  !  Know- 
ing that  she  would  be  called  upon  at  a  moment's  notice,  this  model 
guardian  of  babyhood  always  kept  about  her  a  flannel  garment, 
ready  to  fly  at  the  first  thump.  I  can  remember,  as  if  it  were  yes- 
terday, just  how  that  flannel  petticoat  felt  to  my  boyish  feet  as  I 
pushed  and  pushed  her,  little  by  little,  off  the  edge  of  the  bed  to 
wake  her  up. 

As  the  sun  mounted  the  heavens  six  or  eight  Autons,  with  shoes 
before  them,  sat  bolt  upright  in  bed  destroying  their  appetites. 

By  eight  o'clock  Auton  nursery  was  nauseated,  and  the  bare 
idea  of  breakfast  was  revolting.  Our  big  brother,  however,  was 
not  at  all  excited  by  this  exceptional  state  of  things.  He  drank 
his  coffee,  ate  his  "  drop  cakes  "  and  conversed  with  Father  Auton 


88 


RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


about  the  news  from  the  metropolis  as  if  there  never  was  any  such 
thing  as  Christmas.  With  one  leg  crossed  contentedly  over  the 
other  he  read,  and  read,  and  read  the  morning  paper  until  we  chil- 
dren were  fairly  exasperated  with  him.  There  could  be  no  fun  up- 
stairs until  he  came,  because  Mother  Auton  would  have  waited  for 
him  a  whole  day,  if  necessary,  before  distributing  the  presents. 

To  our  great  relief  he  joined 
at  last  the  noisy  throng  as  it 
swept  like  a  breeze  up  the  front 
stairs  into  "  mother's  room." 

Deb'rah's  small-armed  half- 
sister  "  Ruby  "  used  to  say, 
when  inquiry  was  made  con- 
cerning her  health,  "  that  she 
was  pretty  poorly,"  and  that 
expresses  the  state  of  Mother 
Auton's  feelings  a  good  deal  of 
the  time  at  that  epoch.  She 
thought  that  each  Christmas 
would  be  the  last  one  she  was 
to  be  with  us,  so  that  in  the  midst  of  our  hilarity  we  always  had  a 
tear  in  one  eye.  If  the  amount  of  delight  which  danced  in  our 
expectant  hearts  on  those  Christmas  mornings  could  have  been 
fairly  put  into  the  scales  and  held  there  long  enough  it  would 
have  weighed  down  a  continent. 

Mother  Auton  went  to  one  particular  deep  drawer,  in  one  par- 
ticular bureau,  on  one  particular  side  of  the  room,  and  there,  stand- 
ing before  its  open  mouth,  with  tears  in  her  dear  eyes  and  a  trem- 
bling in  her  speech,  she  placed  in  our  hands  the  little  tokens  of  her 


CHRISTMAS  AT  AUTON  HOUSE.  89 

affection,  one  after  another,  from  father  down  to  Rosannah  the 
cook,  with  such  little  speeches  as  :  — 

"  Accept  this,  my  dear,  as  a  fond  token  of  affection  from  your 
mother,"  etc. ;  and  "  This  silk,  dear  E.,  was  the  nearest  I  could  get 
like  the  one  you  wanted  so  much,"  etc.;  or  "Take  this  remem- 
brance, C.  Auton,  from  your  loving  mother,"  etc. ;  and  "  This,  my 
darling,  is  a  small  affair,  but,"  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  And  so  she  went  down 
the  whole  row,  keeping  us  just  between  smiles  and  tears  all  the 
time,  until  the  festival  was  closed.  Dear,  dear  Mother  Auton ! 

The  remembrance  of  those  beatific  days,  that  mystic  association 
which  clings  to  Christmas-tide,  and  the  precious  memories  which 
they  bring  to  us  of  maternal  love  and  noble  unselfishness,  have  im- 
parted strength  to  endure  that  bitter  burden  of  disappointment  and 
death  which  sooner  or  later  falls  to  the  lot  of  every  human  creature. 


CHAPTER    TWELFTH. 

FATHER  AUTON. 

]HAT  boy  is  fortunate  who  has  reason  to  be 
proud  of  his  father.  We  Anton  boys  were 
lucky  fellows  in  this  respect.  When  people 
told  us  that  they  knew  we  were  "  Autons  "  by 
our  resemblance  to  "  our  daddy,"  we  were 
ready  to  hug  them  with  delight.  At  school 
we  stood  prepared  to  fight  at  a  moment's  no- 
tice to  see  whose  father  was  the  strongest.  We 
had  many  youthful  arguments  to  sustain  our 
lofty  estimate  of  his  character ;  for,  said  we, 
"  did  n't  he  manage  a  bank  which  was  broken 
into  ?  "  and  "  was  n't  he  in  the  city  govern- 
ment and  a  visitor  to  the  insane  asylum  ?  " 
and  "  did  n't  he  speak  to  all  the  poor  people  in  town,  and  say  '  sar- 
vant,  marm,'  to  the  women,  and  'sarvant,  sir,'  to  the  men?"  and 
"  did  n't  he  carry  a  gold-headed  cane  which  he  thumped  along  the 
sidewalks  ?  "  and  "  did  n't  the  butcher  hang  up  venison  all  winter 
for  him,  and  then  bring  in  great  long  bills  in  the  spring,  which  he 
had  to  turn  over  and  over  and  over  again  before  he  got  to  the  end 
of  them  ?  "  and  "  did  n't  he  indorse  pretty  promissory  notes  for 
Cousin  Ezra,  and  then  pay  up  all  Cousin  Ezra's  pretty  debts  for 
him?"  and  "did n't  he  have  what  Mother  Auton  called  'a  corpo- 


FATHER  AUTON. 


91 


ration.'  Now,"  reasoned  we,  "  how  could  he  do  all  these  wonderful 
things  and  have  all  these  wonderful  traits  unless  he  was  a  wonder- 
ful man  ?  "  The  fact  was  self-evident. 

I  remember  so  well  that  delicate  suspicion  of  tobacco  which  lin- 
gered about  his  hands,  and  which  we  used  to  sniff  whenever  he 
played  with  us :  "  Barber  !  barber !  shaved  a  mason,"  or  boxed  our 
ears  in  earnest ;  on  these  latter  occasions  his  great  hands  weighed 
a  ton,  and  for  that  reason  we  begged  Mother  Auton  to  do  all  the 
family  castigation  —  it  was  so  short  and  soon  over. 

In  those  days  Father  Auton 
went  to  market  early  every 
morning  with  his  basket  on 
his  arm,  often  accompanied 
by  some  of  his  "  boys."  He 
sauntered  about  from  cart  to 
cart  inspecting  the  fresh  and 
tempting  merchandise  hi  the 


cool  morning  air. 

It  was  quite  a  blow  to 
youthful  pride,  sometimes,  to 
be  sent  home  from  the  butch- 
er's wagon  with  a  big  cock- 
turkey  dangling  between  one's 
legs,  and  its  gorgeous  tail 
spreading  its  ample  plumage 
before  one  like  a  fan.  Father  Auton  chuckled  to  himself  when  he 
practiced  this  little  joke  upon  his  "  rising  "  sons.  It  is  proper,  how- 
ever, to  remark  that  this  duty  was  never  shirked,  but  with  cane  and 
kids  in  one  hand,  and  cock-turkey  in  the  other,  the  "  rising  son," 


92 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 


bowing  and  scraping  to  the  friends  who  met  him,  triumphantly  car- 
ried the  dangling  monster  safely  through  the  main  streets,  and  laid 
his  yellow  carcase  in  Auton  kitchen.  In  those  days  all  the  black- 
berries and  huckle-berries  were  peddled  from  house  to  house.  Fa- 
ther Auton  used  to  go  out  to  the  farmer's  wagon  without  his  hat, 
and  inspect  the  coal-black  fruit  which  lay  before  him  in  half-bushel 
measures  instead  of  scanty  quart  boxes  of  the  present  day.  In  those 


times  it  was  expected  that  people  would  "  try  "  the  berries  before 
purchasing  them.  The  way  was  to  scoop  up  a  little  heap  in  the 
palm  of  one's  hand,  and  shake  them  up  a  bit  to  get  them  well  to- 
gether; then  pour  them  down  the  throat  like  peas  in  a  hopper. 
Father  Auton  generally  ended  these  "  trials  "  by  taking  five  or  six 
quarts. 


FATHER   AUTON. 


93 


Auton  kitchen  consumed  charcoal  by  the  load.  Great  deep 
baskets  of  it  were  sold  at  six  and  eight  cents,  and  the  tally  used 
to  be  kept  on  the  back  of  the  wood-house  door ;  one,  two,  three,  four, 
and  then  a  mark  across  like  this :  *, .  .  L,  , ,  .... 

until  the  hundred  and  fifty  baskets  -      -JHL — iHL LThL 

were  deposited  in  the  bins.     Farm- 


I  IN 


ers  brought  in  from  the  country  towering  loads  of  walnut  and  hick- 
ory, which  they  pitched  over  into  the  cobble-stoned  yard  of  Auton 
House,  while  the  oxen  and  the  old  horse  munched  corn-stalks  and 
hay  in  the  lane. 

Every  family  had  its  own 
wood-sawyer  in  those  days. 
We  had  ours,  named  "  Dad- 
dy Burns."  This  individual 
was  as  tall  as  a  sycamore, 
and  as  red  as  a  peony.  He 
had  a  bald  head,  and  a  red 
flannel  cap,  which  he  put  on 
when  he  "  sawed."  He  wore 
a  short  jacket  and  a  little  flat 
black  hat.  His  enormous 
trousers  had  nothing  to  mark 
them  but  patches  and  ampli- 
tude, while  his  thick  cow-hide 
shoes  seemed  to  inclose  a 
pair  of  "  hoofs  "  instead  of  feet.  He  must  have  been  six  feet  and 
a  half  in  height.  He  came  swaying  into  Auton  yard  like  the  main- 
mast of  a  ship,  with  his  saw  in  one  hand  and  his  horse  in  the  other, 
looking  like  a  son  of  Anak.  Daddy  Burns  had  a  grand  old  face,  a 


94  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

mixture  of  the  patriarch  and  the  inebriate.  He  never  laughed,  but 
lived  a  lonely  and  dignified  existence  far  above  the  heads  of  other 
men. 

He  was  seldom  in  good  spirits,  but  very  frequently  in  bad  ones. 
He  really  loved  rum  for  rum's  sake,  and  his  long  throat  made  him 
an  excellent  judge  of  it.  He  or  some  other  family  wood-sawyer 
was  the  one  who  drank  two  large  bowls  of  chocolate  without  stop- 
ping, and  then  said  he  "  did  n't  like  choc'late." 

Father  Auton  used  to  lay  in  the  potatoes,  and  the  turnips  and 
carrots,  by  the  hundred  bushels  every  winter.  I  seem  to  hear  now 
the  echo  of  their  tumbling  into  the  big  bins  down  cellar,  as  basket 
after  basket  deposited  its  rumbling  contents.  " Nick  Peters,"  "Old 
Speywood,"  and  "  Mr.  Atwood  "  brought  to  Father  Auton  his  "  Car- 
olina-potatoes," his  "  soft-soap,"  and  his  "  freckled  pippin-apples." 
Old  Speywood  was  an  Indian,  Nick  Peters  was  a  "  Portugee,"  and 
Mr.  Atwood  was  a  Yankee,  —  all  very  unique  varieties  of  men. 
Peters  was  short  and  the  color  of  a  cent ;  Speywood  had  straight 
black  hair  and  high  cheek  bones,  and  when  he  plunged  his  dipper 
into  the  soft-soap  barrel  he  seemed  to  be  on  the  point  of  giving  his 
native  "  war-whoop,"  and  leaping  from  his  wagon  to  "  scalp  "  some 
of  us ;  while  Mr.  Atwood  had  a  perennial  smile  on  his  face  not  un- 
like his  pippins,  and  often  stopped  in  his  work  to  give  us  a  golden 
specimen  out  of  the  barrels  in  his  cart.  These  men  were  great 
friends  with  Father  Auton,  and  well  they  might  be,  for  they  supplied 
the  needs  of  Auton  House  for  many  years  at  good  prices.  Our  but- 
ter and  milk  were  kept  fresh  and  cool  down  the  well,  in  a  tidy,  un- 
painted  wooden  box,  which  preserved  these  articles  quite  as  perfectly 
as  the  modern  refrigerator. 

The  style  of  living  in  those  days  was  simpler  than  the  present 


FATHER  AUTON.  95 

regime,  and  had  a  corresponding  influence  upon  the  habits  and 
customs  of  society.  Men  and  women  lived  long  and  slept  better 
than  they  do  nowadays ;  but  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  Father 
Auton  was  what  "  our  Deb'rah  "  called  a  "  snorer."  The  "  long- 
drawn  notes  of  his  bugle,"  as  they  rose  and  fell  on  the  silent  sum- 
mer air,  used  to  startle  us  from  our  slumber  during  those  sweltering 
August  nights  when  all  the  windows  were  open.  On  one  occasion, 
at  midnight,  a  belated  pedestrian  was  heard  to  exclaim,  as  he 
stopped  for  a  moment  to  listen  to  the  stentorian  notes  of  Father 
Auton,  "  Well !  that  beats  the  Dutch."  In  depth  and  compass 
they  surpassed  the  chronic  concert  of  tree-toad  and  festive  bull- 
frog. 

His  youthful  feelings,  his  sympathizing  nature,  and  his  love  of 
humor  made  Father  Auton  the  very  best  of  companions.  It  was  a 
treat  to  see  him  make  a  quill-pen.  After  scraping  the  proper  por- 
tion with  the  back  of  his  knife-blade,  he  laid  the  nib  on  the  nail  of 
his  left  thumb,  and  performed  the  operation  with  the  air  of  a  pro- 
fessor. Nobody  knew  better  than  he  did  a  chicken  from  a  fowl, 
and  he  told  a  story  almost  as  well  as  "  Uncle  Josiah."  In  summer 
he  suffered  fearfully  from  the  heat,  and  used  to  plunge  his  whole 
head  in  the  great  brass  basin  filled  with  sparkling  pump-water,  like 
a  Newfoundland  dog,  and  lay  his  hot  hands,  as  far  as  the  elbows,  in 
the  same  refreshing  element  when  he  returned  from  the  "  office." 
His  teeth  were  like  ivory ;  and  his  favorite  way  of  amusing  the 
youngsters  of  the  family  was  to  seize  them  by  wrist  and  opposite 
leg,  swing  them  back  and  forth  through  the  air,  and  then  blow  in 
their  faces. 

Father  Auton  was  our  first  teacher  both  in  drawing  and  penman- 
ship. He  showed  us  how  to  make  an  eagle  by  the  flourish  of  a  pen. 

I 


96  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

He  set  our  first  "  copy  "  in  the  writing  book  :  "  Let  beauty  shine  in 
every  line,"  and  puzzled  us  by  saying  that  p-o-t  spelt  tea-pot,  and 
1-o-o-t  spelt  elder-blow  tea. 

Unfortunate  is  the  boy  who  loses  his  father  before  he  becomes  a 
man.  A  symmetrical  character  needs  the  influence  of  both  the 
male  and  female  natures  during  the  critical  period  of  youth.  Nei- 
ther the  maternal  nor  the  paternal  influence  alone  can  form  a  per- 
fect character.  A  boy  brought  up  entirely  by  the  mother  becomes 
a  man  from  a  woman's  point  of  view,  and  is  apt  to  be  wanting  in 
those  qualities  most  needed  in  the  battle  with  the  world  ;  while  a 
youth  who  attains  maturity  unaided  by  the  subtle  potency  of  ma- 
ternal influence  is  likely  to  possess  a  harsh  and  one-sided  disposition, 
and  too  often  becomes  tyrannical  and  brutal.  It  requires  two  sensi- 
ble persons,  a  man  and  a  woman,  to  round  out  and  perfect  the 
manly  character.  Some  wise-acre  has  remarked  that  "  It  is  easy 
enough  to  get  another  wife,  but  where  on  earth  can  you  get  an- 
other mother  ? "  This  axiom  can  be  matched  by  what  old  Aunt 
Katy  (the  black  ironer  of  Auton  kitchen)  said  one  day,  when  the 
conversation  turned  upon  the  merits  of  Father  Auton  :  — 

"  'T  ain't  no  use  talkin' ;  I  would  n't  giv'  nuffin'  for  these  'ere 
step-faders  !  Callin'  a  man  '  fader '  don't  make  him  fader,  does  n't 
it  ?  Brack  or  white,  a  chile  wid'out  a  fresh  and  bloody  fader  ain't 
got  no  show  't  all,  honey ! " 


"A  CHILD  is  father  to  the  man."  His  character  resembles  a  kernel 
of  corn  possessing  great  possibilities,  which  depend  upon  the  acci- 
dents of  soil,  sunshine,  and  rain,  to  develop  into  a  harvest.  There 
is  something  subtle  and  intangible  in  a  boy's  nature,  which  makes 
him  walk  and  talk  like  his  father  when  he  grows  up,  no  matter  if 
he  be  nurtured  on  the  plains  of  Arabia,  or  fed  on  missionaries  in  the 
South  Sea  islands.  We  are  the  same  creatures  in  old  age  that  we 
are  in  youth,  plus  a  few  cares  and  anxieties,  losses  and  disappoint- 
ments which  have  been  put  upon  us  in  the  journey  of  life,  weighing 
us  down  like  heavy  garments.  Although  it  is  true  that  to  eat  of 
the  tree  of  knowledge  is  to  cease  being  a  brute  and  commence 
being  an  angel,  still  it  is  the  acquirement  of  that  same  knowledge 
which  causes  our  bitterest  tears  to  flow,  and  furrows  up  our  brows 
with  care. 

A  little  extra  knowledge  which  we  gamed  at  ten  years  is  what 

7 


98  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AUTON  HOUSE. 

killed  "  Santa  Glaus "  forever,  and  stopped  up  one  avenue  of  the 
keenest  joy.  It  is  nothing  but  increased  intelligence  which  prevents 
us  in  our  manhood  from  indulging  with  zest  in  the  sports  of  our 
youth.  For  instance,  nowadays,  after  we  have  gone  through  the 
operation  of  "  winding  up  "  and  "  pegging  down  "  our  top  in  the 
ring,  say  eight  times  running,  our  improved  minds  tell  us  that  we 
have  "  extracted  all  the  juice  out  of  that  lemon,"  and  there  is 
nothing  more  to  express,  thereby  spoiling  all  our  fun  in  that  direc- 
tion forever.  How  true  it  is  that  "  where  ignorance  is  bliss  't  is  folly 
to  be  wise."  Boyhood  is  the  age  of  anticipation,  which,  again, 
knowledge  and  experience  ruin  and  dissipate  forever.  Take,  for 
example,  the  ecstasy  of  lying  awake  on  Friday  nights  "  contem- 
plating the  coming  "  joys  of  Saturday.  There  is  no  pleasure  equal 
to  it.  The  real  bliss  of  our  holiday,  when  it  actually  arrived,  did 
not  compare  with  the  ideal  presentment  of  it;  indeed,  it  was  no 
pleasure  at  all  if  it  had  happened  to  be  a  rainy  day,  and  this  pleas- 
ure consisted  in  our  want  of  knowledge  of  the  true  facts  of  the 
case.  Youthful  disappointments,  too,  are  easily  "  discounted,"  and 
in  that  unsuspecting  era,  having  no  knowledge,  we  recovered  from 
them  as  easily  as  we  did  when  we  "  bark'd  our  shins." 

There  are  many  occasions  in  maturity  when  a  man's  feelings  are 
identical  with  those  of  his  boyhood.  I  remember  how  I  disliked 
strangers  and  fled  from  their  society,  how  I  hated  to  be  questioned, 
and  shrank  from  exerting  myself  where  I  was  unacquainted,  and 
how  unpleasant  it  used  to  be  when  called  from  the  play-ground  into 
the  drawing-room  of  Auton  House,  to  be  asked  my  name,  and  if  I 
could  <k  spell  cat,"  etc.  I  smile  to  myself  nowadays  when  I  think 
how  little  I  am  changed  from  that  early  period.  For  instance,  when 
I  enter  a  modern  ball-room  and  see  before  me  the  spacious  apart- 


POSTSCRIPT.  99 

ments  redolent  with  the  fragrance  of  flowers,  the  air  palpitating 
with  inspiring  music,  polychrome-women  and  neatly  attired  men 
parading  through  the  lighted  vistas,  the  buzz  of  conversation  filling 
the  ear,  and  the  potent  charm  which  refinement  imparts,  putting  a 
spell  upon  me,  I  don't  know  whether  to  go  in  and  sit  down,  or  go 
out  and  stand  up.  I  am  impatient  if  I  am  talking  with  one  person 
to  leave  him  and  go  and  talk  to  another.  I  desire  to  flee  away.  I 
feel  a  mad  impulse  to  break  from  my  dearest  friend  and  rush  up- 
stairs, down-stairs,  anywhere  but  remain  quiet  where  I  am.  It  is 
the  identical  feeling  that  used  to  possess  me  on  those  nights  when 
Deb'rah  dressed  me  up  in  my  new  "  Aunt-Nancy-Miller  suit,"  for 
one  of  Mother  Auton's  parties,  and  with  wild  eyes  (like  the  "  wan- 
dering Jew  "  impelled  along  by  the  invisible  command,  "  Marchez!" 
"  marchez!")  I  flew  from  the  top  of  the  house  to  the  kitchen  until 
the  party  was  over,  and  the  smoke  from  the  sputtering  candles  filled 
the  darkened  apartments.  Could  we  only  throw  off  our  experiences, 
one  by  one,  as  we  do  our  garments,  we  should  at  last  become  like 
little  children  again.  The  successive  layers  of  care  and  trouble, 
which  fall  to  the  lot  of  everybody,  obliterate  the  boyish  character 
and  bury  the  youthful  heart  beneath  their  gravity  and  ugliness. 
We  only  realize  that,  underneath  it  all,  there  still  exists,  'way  down 
below,  a  perennial  fount  of  youth,  which  old  age  cannot  quench, 
nor  disease  quite  dry  up,  and  which  it  is  possible  to  hear  whenever 
we  pause  long  enough  on  the  dusty  thoroughfare  of  life  to  listen  to 
the  merry  murmur  of  its  waters. 


